


Over The Hills And Far Away

by IllusiveWritings



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-15
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-01-24 22:53:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 38
Words: 143,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1619897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IllusiveWritings/pseuds/IllusiveWritings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Anakin discovers Sidious' plans and decides to twart him any way he can. That means being his prisoner. He asks Obi-Wan to take care of Padmè then swears he will find them. This is his journey through the galaxy and his soul to find his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. End Of All Hope

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this fanfic when I was 15. Now I'm 25. Took me a long time, I kind of rebooted it something like seven years after I started publishing it on FanFiction.Net and there are some inconsistencies here and there. Also, my grammar isn't exactly spotless, I'm not a native speaker and I tend to not notice typos and spelling mistakes. Please forgive me.  
> The story is complete. As it's its sequel. I'll update from time to time. 
> 
> Also, Disclaimer: I don't own a single thing except the whole idea and some characters. Star Wars is property of Disney and it's better this way, or I'd hack my way through the canon to make a movie out of my fanfics. You're warned.

**Chapter One - End of All Hope**

The war was over, or at least so we thought. For the last three weeks, there hadn't been any battles; the Confederation had crumbled over itself once Dooku had died and they lacked his guide. We though we could start building again what had been destroyed by the war.

Everything had changed for the best, for the Galaxy as well as for me, when the Council had decided to grant me the grade of Jedi Master.

I couldn't believe it myself. It was like a thunder with a clean sky, that night when Obi-Wan called me and asked me to join him during one of the Counsil meetings. When Master Yoda confirmed it and they gave me that grade that I had been seeking for so long, well, everything changed. Suddenly, every doubt that was rooting in me about the Order vanished and my trust in them returned firmer than before. Not even Palpatine could destroy it anymore.

When I returned "home", Padmè's official residence, and announced her the news, well, you can't imagine how happy we both were. We had everything we wanted. She had the ending of the war, I had my new rank and we both had a baby on the way.

Things were going the best way possible. Too good to be true.

Just a day ago, things started going all wrong. The soldiers, by the Chancellor's, or Sidious I'd better say, started a meaningless hunt for the traitor, and killed everyone who Palpatine didn't like. The Lower Levels of Coruscant had become a sort of open morgue, with corpses piling up, because not only the real objective of the soldiers' hunt died, there were many civilians who died during gunfights. Too many. The worst part of it was the fact that the Jedi couldn't do anything to stop them. The Senate hadn't required our help, therefore, we were bound to watch and do nothing.

At that point, something clicked in my head and I discovered everything. The plan to destroy the Order, Palpatine's true nature, everything. I was assisting to one of those boring Senate meetings with Obi-Wan when I suddenly remembered something that Palpatine had told me, not two weeks before. The story of Darth Plagueis. He was a civilian, he wasn't trained in the ways of the Force, he shouldn't even know about the existence of the Sith, how could he know such a story? Probably not even the Jedi Master knew then how could he?

I burst up from my chair, probably scaring Obi-Wan and without a word I ran in his office, taking advantage of his absence to moderate the meeting.

I knew there was a list of secret orders that only the Clones and the Chancellor knew, and I was there to uncover them once and for all.

There were 150 orders in that list, most of them were normal war stuff but the Order 66 and its variant totally shocked me.

_Order 66 – Operation Knightfall: Destroy every Jedi_

_Order 66.1 – Destroy every Jedi except Master Anakin Skywalker_

I couldn't believe it. Suddenly, everything made sense. The special power, his reluctance to follow the Council advices, his obstructionism...everything! Palpatine wanted the supreme control over the Galaxy, but not only that! Palpatine wanted the annihilation of the Order, and no one except the Sith could want anything like that. Which meant that...

I collapsed on the Chancellor's chair, desperately seeking a reason to all this madness. I had discovered the true identity of the man we served for thirteen years straight, like blind people follow the man with one eye. For thirteen years we spent every ounce of energy we had looking for Darth Sidious and for all this time we served him reverently. Shit!

We had all been blind, everyone of us, at the point that we couldn't really see anything anymore. The shroud the Dark Side had created was too thick. I had been blind too, considering that for thirteen years I let Palpatine guide my steps more than my own master.

For so many years I let him made machinations over machinations, I gave him enough room to instil the doubt in me, I let him tell me that I was wasted as long as I continued relying on the Council and the Jedi Order, that my talent was held back because they feared me. And during these years, corpses piled up in the Galaxy in a meaningless war, created only to crush the Order.

Not to mention the fact that more than once I had been tempted by the Dark Side of the Force, and it was his fault. I had almost jumped in his trap with both my boots, a trap he had started weaving when I was a kid.

What an idiot...

I had to warn someone. But most of all I had to save Padmè, that was my priority. Order 66.1 was a variation of the original just in case I didn't turn to the Dark Side, I knew it, considering that it was inserted in the list the same day I had been made a Master. Fortunately, I didn't fall. That meant only one thing: she was in danger. In my heard I knew Sidious was well aware of my marriage, even if I hadn't told him. His words, that night at the opera house, they were clear enough. I couldn't allow anyone to hurt her. Even if right after I had been named a Master my nightmares had disappeared, I knew that if something went wrong, they would look for her and hurt her.

I sent a quick message to Obi-Wan, telling him I needed to talk to him in the Council room then downloaded the data from that computer, deleted my traces then ran to the Temple as fast as I could.

I stayed there for I don't know how long, sitting in my chair, thinking and brooding over what was going on and what had happened during the years. Outside night was falling and thick, rainy clouds were gathering on the horizon line, almost mirroring my character in that moment.

As time passed, light dimmed in the room and before my Master arrived, I was bathing in deep darkness. I didn't turn on the light, because the darkness helped me thinking more clearly.

After an endless hour, finally Obi-Wan arrived. I heard his steps outside the door, but I could feel he was approaching through the Force since the moment he had set foot in the Temple. Suddenly I felt a little better, even if I was about to drop a huge bomb. The knowledge he actually suspected something didn't ease the dreadful feeling of betrayal but at least I knew I could trust him. I stood up and walked towards one of the windows. I sought some comfort in the thick darkness spotted with the lights of speeders and ships, a never ending show on that planet.

"Is there something wrong, Anakin?" he asked, slowly and calm, as ever. He didn't even greeted me. I knew he had sensed something was very wrong.

I looked down and in the chaos of the trafficked highways and streets I found a sort of scheme, as twisted as Sidious' one.

"Yes Master, something's wrong." I said, still looking outside the window. I fished in one of my pockets and threw him the datapad with the list of orders I had downloaded an hour before. "When I ran away from the Senate I went in the Chancellor's office and I found this.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Look at Order 66 and the following one." I said. I didn't have the courage to tell him myself.

Only then I turned around and looked at him, straight in his eyes. When our gazes met soon after he had read those two lines, I read on his face the same disbelief and fear I had felt when I had read them myself.

"What the hell is he thinking?"

"Master, Palpatine...he's the Sith we've been looking for all these years. He's Darth Sidious." my voice was trembling.

"But why killing everyone except you?" I didn't understand if he was more worried about the fate of the Order or about me.

"Because for the last thirteen years he spent half of his time trying to drag me to his side. His friendship was fake, he only wanted to use me as his pawn, bring me to the Dark Side and I fear he's not ready to let me go so easily, even if he has a new apprentice." I was marveled by my own self control and coolness in that very moment.

"Who's this apprentice?" he asked after a moment.

"Do you remember six years ago, in the Outer Rim, Master Draghil's Padawan disappeared? Aster Landman?" I asked.

"Yes..." he paused for a moment. "I remember when it happened but I don't remember him. Wasn't he a friend of yours?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Well, I wouldn't define him a friend. Aster has always been a rather...mute type. He preferred concentrating on his training than making friends. Anyway, I think it's him. I read his name in Sidious' files rather often."

Obi-Wan glanced outside, out of the window behind me, frowning. I heard him drawing a long, deep sigh.

"Right. All we have to do is fight him and replace that bastard. It's not a hard work."

His response was puzzling. I never heard him offend someone, but I could understand him. Many Jedi died during the war. And many of them were too young to die, according to him. Many of them were our friends, and his reaction was understandable.

A long, thick silence fell in the room. He had to draw the words out of me with a wrench, i

"But there's more, isn't it?" he asked, as he saw the look on my face.

I turned again to the windowpane.

I was so tired that I didn't know how I could still be on my feet. I felt my legs buckle as I though about Padmè. She was everything to me.

"What is it, Anakin? Something troubles you, I can feel it." he asked.

I nodded, not trusting my own voice. I was tired, I couldn't stand that torment anymore. It was tearing me apart. I could barely stand up straight as I though about Padmè and what they could do in order to make me falter again and turn to the Dark side. Not to mention that at least for a period of her life she had put her life in Palpatine's hands and she had trusted him with her life, knowing his true identity would have destroyed her.

Power play. That was a huge power play and we were the pawns on the table. They wanted to destroy us. But I could stand the thought that I could die, I was a warrior in the end, I had grown accustomed to the idea of dying but not her. If they hurt her, I would not not respond of my actions.

"Anakin?"

"Senator Amidala," I said coldly, but inside I was burning with fear, tension and love.

"What about her?" he asked, his tone betrayed him. He knew.

"Take her away please, far from here. Hide her someways. Go to my brother's, on Tatooine. I doubt they'll look for her there. Palpatine will surely discover that I've been in his office and I know about Order 66, he'll find a way to make me pay for that, he'll destroy the Order. Probably he'll make up the story that I tried to kill him and will have me arrested, so that he can control me. I don't want Padmè to be involved in this. She must stay out of this." I was losing my temper. The knowledge of what was about to happen and the fact that I could do nothing to stop it made me sick.

"At least tell me why!"

It was almost too much. I closed my eyes, I tried to calm down, I took some incredibly painful breaths and then spoke. "Because she's my wife, Master. I married her almost three years ago and...and because she's pregnant! And I don't want her to be hurt. That's why!"

Their lives depended on me. I had to do something, and if that something was trusting their lives in Obi-Wan's hands while I gave into Palpatine's plan and tried to stay alive long enough, well, I would have done it. I wasn't afraid to die, but I couldn't afford to lose her. "Take her away please..." I was almost crying.

"No way. I won't do it Anakin, she's your wife, that's your child, I can't. You have to take care of them, not me!" what he said, the way he said it and the resolution of his words gave me the final certainty he knew all along that my relationship with her wasn't simple friendship. He wasn't even angry or disappointed. "You can't abandon them!"

"I'm not abandoning her. I'm saving her life. Something big is coming, I can feel it in the Force, and it's not only the Order 66. I'm sure of that, as I know that Palpatine won't kill me, at least not now. But he could use her as a leverage to make me turn. And he will hurt her to do that. I can't allow him to do anything to her. Keep her hidden, make sure she's fine. If I did it, every single trooper, bounty hunter and crime lord of the Galaxy would come look for us, but you can do something about it. You can pretend you're dead, make up something I don't know I can't think straight now. Just, please, do it. I can take care of myself and I swear that a way or another I'll find you. I don't know how long will it take but I'll find you." finally I turned and faced him. "Please, go. GO NOW!"

Then, he went. Not a word, not a nod. It was the last time I saw him for the next eight years.

I turned again to the window and vented out all the rage that was piling up in me against the trasparasteel pane. Thank the Force I did it with my right hand, because large cracks formed from the spot I had hit and it takes a lot to crack that material.

Finally calmer, I wore my cloak, pulled up the hood and made way to Palpatine's office.

I would confront him, one way or another.


	2. Nemo

**Chapter 2 – Nemo**

Well, it could be worse.

Even if they had kept me segregated in a maximum security prison for seven years, give or take some days, I still had a clear idea of who I was. I hadn't gone mad yet, let's make it easy.

I didn't know which planet the prison was built on. Probably it was one of the ways they ensured the prisoners couldn't escape or helped in the process. When I went in the Chancellor's, now Emperor's, office, I had been cuffed, blindfolded and without respect for manners or whatever, pushed on a military transport that brought me straight to my prison. It had been a rather long trip and while waiting silently in the back of the ship I heard the Clones talking. Many of them knew me, if not because they had served under me because I was a well known personality and they were rather impressed by the Chancellor's decision to lock me up and, well, throw away the key.

Not to mention the orders they had just received. They had been created to be submissive but they had a full functioning brain and they were asking questions. They just couldn't understand why I had been arrested if those who were out of the Chancellor's office had seen me getting out of it without a weapon. It looked like I hadn't even tried to hurt him.

I could have tried to kill him there and then but, in the state of mind I was in, totally confused and somehow hazed, I didn't have any hopes to get out of there alive. I tried to remain as passive and emotionless as I could while he pronounced the sentence that bound me to that cell for the rest of my life.

Life...yeah, as if I can call this life.

Once I was inside the building, they took the blindfold off. The place was dimly lit, dug in rocks and probably underground. There were no recognizable signs of its location that helped me getting at least the idea of which planet they had sent me to. The guards pushed me inside a cramped room and made me sit on chair before tying my ankles to the chair itself and linking the cuffs to another chain attached to the floor. They really didn't want to let me go!

I was interrogated by an unknown officer, a short, sturdy man. He was one of those viscid man with such an acute voice that can make your skin crawl in the same moment they speak a word. They asked me my personal details while they filled a form. After that they took a snapshot in case a capture order must have been released then they assigned me a number. From that moment on, for seven years, they called me using a number. 100389, 389 to make it short.

They gave me a gray, rough uniform then packed my personal effects while I ensured they sealed everything. Soon after that, every official record about me, demographic registries, military or civilian records were deleted. Anakin Skywalker didn't exist anymore. Fantastic!

Two clones escorted me down a long, dark hallway with two rows of cells opening along the walls. I could see the other prisoners peeking curiously out trying to figure out who had come to join them and some of them recognized me. I saw the amazement in their eyes and I felt a bit proud of that. I had lost my freedom, but not my pride, and they never managed to tear it away from me. Never.

They took away the cuffs and pushed me in the cell, then closed the door behind them.

Twenty-four hours closed in that cell, nothing else to do except rethinking about my life. The interior was made of raw stone, the spartan furnishing consisted in a steel bed and a carved shelf where three other uniforms rested with some things like a toothbrush, a tin cup and a pile of thick covers. There was a toilet and a sink in a corner too. That was my cell, my new home.

Not twenty-four hours had passed since the electronic key lock had been closed when I suddenly heard someone screaming. At first I thought it was a prisoner then I realized that scream came from my head. After that, the sound of blasters, other screams, ships exploding and lightsabers that turned off filled my head.

Order 66 had been given.

That was the echo of thousands of Jedi Knights that died under the fire of the Clones they considered allies just ten seconds before. It was a wide awake nightmare. I couldn't stand it. Each Jedi that died I felt the pain in my head getting worse and the sounds in my head got louder.

It was a terrible moment. I still barely can talk about it, after almost twenty five years...

Anyway, that was very first day of prison. The next one was even worse. At least from my very point of view.

For some long minutes I was connected with Vader, Sidious new apprentice. That was his name. It might be absurd, but I was laying down on my bed when suddenly I felt like I was being burned alive. Every inch of skin was on fire, my limbs felt as if they were being electrocuted. It was terrifying. I could feel his pain, I could experience what he was going through. I don't know who was the sadistic medic that was surveying that surgery but they were installing four artificial limbs and he was wide awake. What the fuck? I thought I was going to die when finally that connection broke down as fast as it had come.

It happened other times during the years. Not with that intensity, but as long as I was kept prisoner, sometimes I could feel his feelings and the discomfort brought by his life system suit, the pain where flesh and durasteel joined...when he was angry...stuff like that. I learned how to live with that, but it was annoying.

For days I wondered what the hell had happened then I heard two clones talking about it. Apparently, a rogue Jedi that had survived had confronted Vader on Mustafar and had defeated him, severing his arms and legs then leaving him burning near a river of magma on the mining planet.

Obi-Wan. I was sure that was his doing. Don't ask me how but as soon as I learned what had happened I was sure It was him. I just hoped he had made sure that Padmè was safe before chasing him, otherwise once I had managed to get out of there I would make him pay for that.

Still, I didn't know what the new Emperor had reserved for me. Well, I learned about that some days later.

Sidious' plan to make me turn to the Dark Side started one afternoon. Psychological tricks didn't work? Alright, it was time to pass to physical pain.

Really intense pain, I can assure you. Two or three times a month I was moved to another cell, tied and beat until I lost consciousness. I have scars to prove it. Probably they managed to break every bone of my skeleton, rip every ligament and slash so many wounds on my back to create a small geographical map. Sometimes the medic in charge had to intervene and stitch me closed. Fortunately I had a trusted ally by my side. The Force. I had never been too good at Force Healing like many of my friends were but I assure you that necessity makes your skills better and I learned how to do it, or at least I got good at mending bones or torn ligaments. The problem is that the same moment I got of prison, I unlearned what I had learned in that cell. I wasn't able anymore. Too bad, it could have been useful in the end.

That was my routine for seven years. And it wasn't even the worst thing.

That was when Vader came and took over the guards during the torture sessions. It didn't happen too often, maybe once or twice a year but still, when I felt his presence coming closer, I started trembling like mad. He was sadistic, he used most of all the Force to hurt me in ways the others couldn't even imagine.

And when they dragged my exhausted body to my cell, well, I had only one though in my mind.

My wife.

My own, personal, private angel.

She was everything that held me together. Without her, I would have gone crazy after six months or probably I would have fallen to the Dark Side. Sometimes I just laid there on the floor and thought about her. Every memory of her, of us together, worked as the best painkiller in the Galaxy.

She made me fall asleep, she gave me a reason to hold on and keep up and most of all she gave me a reason to keep my head right there where it was, stuck on my neck and not anywhere else.

And sometimes it felt like she was right there with me. Even if there was probably half a galaxy between us, I felt her soothing presence right there beside me and with everything that they did to me, I lived on the hope to have her again in my arms. Not to mention my son, or daughter.

I remember when he was born. I felt it through he Force. About a month after I had been arrested, I still could keep the track of time back then, I felt something change in the Force. Something really, really big, like an energy flux that burst out of nothing. Well, not out of nothing.

At that point I understood. My son, or my daughter, was born that day.

Suddenly, even if I hated that place, I was the happiest man in the Galaxy. I was a father and it was the best feeling of the universe.

Anyway, I had enough memories to hold on to.

But it wasn't easy. There were days that I felt fear gripping my stomach like a vicious hold that strangled me and there was memory that helped me. If felt Vader's heavy presence everywhere, the Force was continuously shaken and stirred, as if it was grieving the loss of so many Jedi. Not to mention that as years passed, the torture sessions got steadily worse and by the beginning of my seventh year of that special treatment I started fearing that one day or another they would have killed me.

I had to get out of there, one way or another, possibly on my own legs.

I had to do something, if not for myself, for my wife and for my son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may notice, at some point, that the titles for the chapters come from songs. Most of the time there's a tight connection between the theme of the chapter and the song I chose to represent it. Not always, but most of the time, there is. I'll let you know when it is really important.


	3. He Swears He Will Return One Day

**Chapter 3 -** **He Swears He Will Return One Day**

When you have nothing to do all day, time passes really slowly and that's common knowledge, it's a constant of everybody's life. But when you're laying on the filthy floor of your cell listening to your own blood oozing from your wounds that are slowly healing, time can pass even at a slower rate. Evey second becomes endless, you loose the track of time, your circadian rhythm fucks up and take a long vacation therefore you start sleeping less and less everyday. It's hell. Total isolation is truly a living hell. I wouldn't wish it to my worst enemy.

I was tired. No, better, I was exhausted, still the prison guards didn't stop hitting me like a punching bag. They didn't stop even when I coughed a mouthful or two of blood, and I had the very frightening sensation they had broken a couple of ribs that had damaged my lungs. That day, I assure you, I thought I was going to die. Really, between the fear and the pain, I was shaking heavily.

Tied up in the center of the dark room, the chains held my arms above my head so I couldn't fall on the floor even if my legs couldn't hold me on anymore and I was barely managing to stand on my knees. I had lost every sensation to my left hand because my wrists had to support all my weight and the cuffs were very tight so there wasn't so much blood that managed to arrive to my fleshy hand. And there was a lot of blood on the walls and on the floor.

I was hanging like a rag doll while the soldiers did their job, and they did it incredibly well. I couldn't even blame them. Those were the orders and they had been created and raised to obey orders. Not to mention that it was a matter of life and death, because if the orders come straight from Darth Vader, you obey and shut up if you want to survive.

Even Clones love their life in the end.

I was trying to convince myself that they weren't doing it because they hated me when the soldier hit me with his knee on my right side. That Clone finished like that every time. It was over. My monthly torture session was over. I could go back in my cell.

One of the guards unlocked the cuffs and I fell on the floor miserably. I didn't even have the strength to wince in pain anymore, I didn't even try to slow down the fall. You know, one broken bone more, what could have mattered then? I managed to turn on my back before the guards got hold of my ankles and dragged me out of the room to get me back in my cell. I was barely conscious but I could hear the other prisoners cursing at our guards. It was the only way they could show some sympathy in my regards. After all, I was the one that was treated worse, at least they had their air hour and they could at least chat even though only through the bars of the cells. I was the one that was kept constantly isolated.

They left in my cell without too much care and they closed the door behind them, leaving me there, while trying to hold on consciousness as long as I could, I felt the Force starting to heal me.

I don't know how long I remained there, motionless, on the floor. Maybe an hour, maybe a day, I have no idea. I felt the wounds healing, broken bones re-knitting on their own will. It's not such a good sensation. Sometimes it's better having an open wound. The healing powers of the Force don't care too much about the pain. They just do it, there no anesthetic to help you. In its own distorted way, it was a good thing that after those seven years of hell I lost the ability to heal using the Force. Sometimes it's worse than traditional methods. I don't know why but the same moment I set foot outside that prison, I lost that ability and I had to turn to traditional methods (casts, sutures and sometimes long bacta baths) to heal my wounds. You know, the Force can bless you with extraordinary abilities but it can take them away in no time. That was the case.

I managed to sleep for a while and when I woke up, several hours later, I was still on my back in a pool of blood. I wasn't in great shape, I had to admit it to myself as I gingerly stood up. My left wrist hurt like hell but at least I could stand. It was a good sign. Rubbing my hurting wrist, I dragged myself to the sink and opened the water. I took off the shirt of the uniform and tried as best as I could to wash away the blood from my tortured skin. The cool sensation of the waster on my skin was a very welcomed feeling. It always made me feel a little better. I washed my face and tried to scrub away the dried blood from my hair and beard. I tried to get a sort of reflection from the metallic surface to check the result but no such luck, it was too dark to see clearly.

You might wonder why I did this instead of laying on the bed and sleep the next two days away. Well, it was because someone was coming to see me.

How could I now? I could feel him coming closer through the Force. I always felt Vader when he came. And I was sure he was coming for me. After all, I was the only prisoner in there, important enough to receive visitors. Therefore, I wanted to be at least presentable. I just hoped he wasn't coming to beat me up like the clones had just done, or I was a dead man. I felt really better after those hours of sleep but I wasn't up for another fight.

I felt him as he went through the threshold of the prison. His echo in the Force was so obtrusive that sometimes I could feel him when his transport jumped out of hyperspace.

It wasn't such a great prospective, if you think about it. I wasn't in shape to confront him, with or without my lightsaber, because if he was angry (and he was always angry when he came to visit me), he would surely try to hurt me one way or another. That certainty terrorized me.

It might sound strange, but it's true. I've spent half of my life in life-threatening situations and still one singe man scared my guts out. And he is the only one that gives me this effect, I assure you!

When I felt I was at least presentable I toweled myself dry and wore a clean prison uniform. The only comfort I was authorized to receive was plenty of uniforms to wear when I wanted. At least that...

Anyway, when I felt clean enough, I sat down on my bed and waited. I didn't have to wait long before he arrived. The heavy metallic door opened with a low hiss and on the door frame I could see his dark cloaked figure as he stepped in my cell and closed the door using the Force.

The metallic hiss of his breather filled the cramped room, echoing at every exhalation. In the dark, dimly lit room, I couldn't see him clearly but I could feel his feelings through the Force, and he wasn't definitely calm. He was rather irritated, to say the least.

I stayed there, staring in my best enemy's masked eyes for some seconds and I noticed he was clenching his fists convulsively as if trying to keep calm. He seemed more nervous than angry, at least from his body language. An angry Sith was the norm, a nervous one? That was a first.

"What do you want?" I asked as calm as I could seem.

He didn't say a word, but I knew that behind the lenses of his mask he was staring back at me.

"Come on, you're here! What do you want?"

"Shut up, Skywalker!" he roared. "I'm not in the mood!" he turned to the small window and looked outside, in the same time he put some distance between us, as if he was trying to keep me far away from him or keeping himself from beating me.

I sighed. "Sure, because I'm really happy to see you! I feel like a rancor had just run over me, and now you come here! Come on, ask me what you have to and let's end it here. Are you here to kill me?" I asked standing up and facing him.

"Shut up. Shut up for a moment!" he said again. I had made him angry. And not just a bit. It would have been better to act more carefully from that moment on, because the last time I had made him angry, well, the result was a place in the infirmary for a week and three days of mechanical ventilation. An experience I didn't want to replicate.

I stood there, silent and waited. Suddenly, he turned towards me and pushed me against the wall, using the Force.

Surprised, I stared at him for a moment then pushed him back on the opposite wall, trying to put as much distance as I could between us.

We stared daggers at each other before engaging a small battle made of Force pushes and pulls and everything. We managed to topple over the opponent quite a few times each while trying to mitigate or annul the moves of the other.

The only problem was the fact that I was dead tired while he seemed as fresh as if he had just woken up. That gave him a lot of advantage and at some point he managed to make me fall on the ground quite violently, leaving me stunned and in pain. Two of the newly mended ribs snapped again and I had to hold on tight not to loose consciousness again and I had hit the floor hard with the back of my head and that left me almost numb for more than a minute.

I lifted my spinning head and stared at him angrily. "What the heck do you want?" I asked, breathing heavily. I wanted to end it there or we would have killed each other at that rate.

He grabbed the collar of my uniform and tugged me up until I was standing. "Your help." then he let me go.

"What?" I shouted in disbelief. "And that's your way to convince me to help you? I knew you were crazy but I didn't know you were that crazy!" It felt like a paradox. I mean, he attacks me then asks for my help? And though it was a logical thing to do? I would have never helped him, not even to repair the actuator of his left arm that cracked like a broken branch every time he moved his hand. I could hear it was broken even above his loud breath.

"I probably am, but you are the only one that can give me the information I need!" he said, a bit calmer than before. "Even after so many years, maybe you can help me."

For a moment I though I had really lost my mind in there. For a second, his dark reddish visors became almost transparent and I could see his eyes, even in the darkness of that cell. He looked desperate under that freaking mask. Those were the eyes of a desperate man, not too different from mine.

Through the Force I felt something strange in him. I felt his rage, his continuous pain for the wounds he had suffered back on Mustafar and his life-support suit, I felt the Dark Side that encumbered his mind and ability to reason on his own and made him Sidious' slave, his pet. It blinded him, exactly like every other Jedi years before.

In that moment I realized that we were both rotting in two different and well distinct hells. I was suffering every possible pain in total isolation, far away from those I cared about, he was slowly being tore apart in both physical and spiritual pain, he was drowning in the Dark Side every day. We were more alike than what I had thought.

In that moment of silence between my sentence and my reply, I realized that I could be the one in the suit. I had realized that years before, I knew I was Sidious' ultimate aim, but having him in front of me, in those conditions, well, that was a totally different experience. For an instant, I had seen his defense lowered and I though about how I would have felt being trapped in there. Not good.

The noise coming from his mechanic limbs brought me back to reality.

"Alright, now I can even die happily. I've seen everything this Galaxy could show me. A Sith asking a Jedi's help. A Jedi everyone considers dead. You're crazy!" I raised my hands up above my head. After that, I could really die content. I had really seen everything.

"Don't pull too much the rope, Skywalker!" he replied. Even with his voice filtered by the vocal synthesizer I knew he was about to burst.

"Well, Aster, once you used to call me Anakin." I said back, angry. "Once we could consider ourselves friends. Once! Before you murdered all those people. Once I would have done everything for you, but now, you lost your chance. I don't care what you want or what you will do to me. You won't get anything out of me!"

I'm sure he smiled at that point, as he fished in his pocket and pulled out a leathery string with something shiny attached to it. "But you care about this, don't you?"

My wedding ring.

"Where the hell..." I couldn't finish my sentence. He pushed me against the wall again, this time slowly.

"I have all the authorizations to get access to your personal effects. And I still have some shots. I spent years trying to find something, anything, to corrupt you, one way or another. I thought my Master had already tried that way, but no. Or he tried and failed. That's weird. It's a great leverage to make you cross the line on our side."

I tried to swallow the lump that had formed in my throat and prevented me to breathe normally. Sidious knew about my marriage. Well, actually the whole Galaxy knew. Since Padmè was officially dead, and so was I, someone had spilled everything to the press and it got great coverage, during the first weeks of the Empire. I was sure it had been Sidious' work.

And now Vader landed there, in my cell, digging up old matters that had indeed made me step dangerously close to the Dark Side but hadn't managed to make me cross the line? I still couldn't see its logic, but I let him go on.

"Now listen. Your wife is dead, and I can't say I'm sorry for that, but I think you still care about this. In the end, this is one of the few material memories you have about her."

I nodded.

"Good. Now, you have to choose: either you help me and I give this back to you or I'll throw it out of a window of the Senate. What do you think?"

Great, now he really managed to piss me off. For good. I didn't give him the chance to brace himself, I threw him against the wall behind him. The beat and the surprise loosened his hold on the string and I managed to yank it away from his grasp, using the Force. It flew straight in my hand and for once the cool sensation of the metal on my skin didn't give me the creeps.

"What do you want?" I asked then.

"Sidious wants the access codes to the Temple mainframe. That's all."

As if I had them! I had been made a Master and I had been actually given the codes but when I was arrested I hadn't learned them by heart as I should have. I had saved them in a memory stick that I had hidden in the Council chamber but I really didn't remember them.

I lowered my gaze. "I don't have them." He was about to hit me again but I raised my hands defensively. "Wait a sec! I have a good reason! Those were 120-digit cryptographic keys, even Master Yoda would have needed time to memorize them. I didn't have the time, I'm sorry but I can't remember them after so much time!" of course I wouldn't have given them even knowing them perfectly, but he seemed satisfied with my reply.

Actually, he stood silent for endless moments. He seemed somehow upset by such a rational and valid reply. Probably he was expecting an implausible and as big as the Temple lie. Well, I had actually lied to him. Those where 240-digits keys, even worse.

Still, that long and awkward silence was filled with rage and resentment. "Good. Next question. I know you warned Kenobi before the Order 66 was given. Where did you tell him to hide?"

"He did everything by himself. I just told him to hide as good as he could. And even if I told you where I'd sent him, I truly doubt he would still be there after seven years. He's not stupid!"

"You're right. You've been a bit out of touch with the world, didn't you?" he teased me, as sarcastic as he could be.

I chuckled loudly, probably making the most idiotic grin of the Galaxy. "Very funny Vader! As if I need your fucked up humor now!"

"You know I love torturing you! It's the only thing I can do!" he fell silent for a second. "But let me tell you this: you can put an end to this. Even now. You just need to surrender and everything will be over. You're wasted in here. You could dominate the Galaxy if you join us. Together, we could kill Sidious and take his power!"

I turned towards the small window. "And be part of this massacre? No, thank you. I prefer die and rot in here than join you." I grinned, a bit amused. "You know, you're an idiot. Sidious is using you! He's been using you since you turned! You're his puppet, he keeps you on a leash like a dog, and I think that's a very short leash! You could have been a great Jedi, you had a great potential, and now look at yourself! You can't even breathe on your own!"

I had made him angry. No, better, furious. I heard a strange, smothered sound above his breather, probably it came straight from his tortured lungs and not from his voice synthesizer, as he launched towards me with all his might. I tried to push him back but he managed to throw me on the floor and I didn't even have the time to turn and parry his hits when I felt him kicking me exactly on my broken ribs. It was too much to hope he didn't hit the same places I had been beaten only hours before?

It felt like he was ripping me in two. You think you're used to pain after thirteen years of battles and wounds, but in that contest, no, there's no preparation that allows you to stand the pain a bit better than others.

He was beating me because he was angry though, and everyone that fights in anger sooner or later makes a mistake. And being that tall, his legs were easy preys. When he lifted his foot to hit me again, I managed to turn around and kick the leg that was now holding all his considerable weight. He fell and the crashing sound of his metallic limbs echoed in the room for long moments. It was almost deafening.

I managed to stand up a moment before him and I saw him lifting his right and and clench it around nothing, but I felt my throat constricted as if his fingers were around my neck.

Without thinking, I did the same but I acted on the tube that brought oxygen to his internal system. We were strangulating each other. It was a matter of seconds before we both fell unconscious on the floor. I was already desperately seeking air, I felt my lungs burn but his hold just got tighter.

"Stop it..." he said. "Or I swear I'll kill you!"

The rage I was experiencing in that moment told me to go on and don't care about my life, but my rational part kept telling me to give up and survive, that there would have been other chances to kill him.

"Go away then..." I managed to whisper.

We both released our holds. I fell on my knees, breathless and I tried to catch my breath.

Strange enough, he obeyed and left the room. He turned to the door and knocked loudly, until a soldier from the other side opened the door. But he didn't leave before speaking again. "Think about it. All of this could stop, it all depends on you."

I was still trying to breath normally but still I managed to reply properly. "Go away. And tell your Master that the only way to have me on your side is as a corpse."

Without a word, e stepped out of the cell and the door closed with a loud bang.

I sat on my bed and closed my eyes, hiding my face in my hands. It was too much. I couldn't take anymore of that situation. I had behaved, I had been a good kid for seven years, now it was time to do something, for Padmè and my son.

It was time to get out of there.


	4. Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick PSA: the first ten chapters were written when I was 15. I tried to edit them years later but I couldn't change them too much because I wanted to avoid plot holes or inconsistencies here and there. They kind of suck. From chapter 11 on, this story was written when I was 21. Totally different method of writing, knowledge of the English language and narrative technique. Be patient, to good stuff will come. And the sequel is much much better anyway.

**Chapter 4 – Away**

It took me almost two months to prepare my escape plan. Two months spent in an almost continuous deep meditation, trying to figure out a mental map of the base following each day a different clone through the Force, following his echo like a tracking signal. It wasn't an easy job because I kept loosing attention and sometimes I had to start all over again but in the end I had a very clear map of the prison in my mind and notched on the wall in the darkest corner of my cell. I used a sharp stone I found on the terrain just outside the window of my cell. Studying that map I had planned a swift way out without being detected by security cameras. Not bad, considering that I was locked in those four walls all day.

I just needed some luck.

If the Force can be called luck.

Still, I had a strange feeling, I felt the pressure raising every moment as the chosen day approached. I wasn't calm. To avoid any annoyance, I spent the last week studying my plan and the scheme and keeping a close eye on the schedule of the prison and its activities going on during the day, such as the free hour the other prisoners were given, changes of shifts, when the meals were served... all things I had never noticed before, considering that my mind was elsewhere all those years, as I tried not to go crazy in there. I was regaining some normal rhythms too, I slept during the night and was awake during the day. It wasn't a bad plan after all.

Blocked inside that cell like an animal, I wasn't that hungry but I was trying to eat more than the usual in order to gain enough strength just in case I had to fight my way out. Of course food wasn't that great, but it was energy nonetheless. It was hard, I have to admit that, and I've never been the kind of man that's picky around food...

The main problem was the fact that I was always agitated. Sleep didn't come easily and when I managed to sleep it was haunted by nightmares and stuff like that. I used to wake up screaming. I wasn't really resting much. I found myself clinging to everything in order to calm down, from old meditation exercises I used to do when I was a kid to memories of my mother and Padmè (though I have to admit that those memories did everything but calm me down, they had a totally different effect I don't want to talk about), I thought about the battles I had participated with my Master and about the child I had never got to know...in a way or another, in the end I managed to fall asleep but I was too agitated to rest properly.

I had to gain my freedom. I had a physical need for it. My last meeting with Vader had really upset me, I had to get out of there or I would have gone crazy. No turning to the Dark Side or whatever, just plain madness caused by claustrophobia, nothing else. I just couldn't allow them to tamper with my life again or they would win again. It couldn't end like that, not me, not Anakin Skywalker.

Finally in the late afternoon of the chosen day, I decided to act. My last torture session was a week behind and I was almost as healthy as ever. I could do it. After all, I had planned everything in the details, the action, the moment...everything!

Obi-Wan would have been proud of me.

And I owe him pretty much everything in the end. The idea, the meanings...everything! One day I was laying on my bed, thinking and re-thinking about an idea to get out of there when suddenly I found myself wandering in my memories when Obi-Wan was teaching me the basics of the lightsaber fighting. I recalled his own style, his form, so passive but so deadly at the same time. It took advantage the physical strength of the adversary to deviate his blows and find a hole in his defense. It was a passive form of fighting, so different from my aggressive and fast form...and that gave me the idea.

It wasn't like I was a genius, after all it was a trick as old as the Galaxy but it still worked somehow. I just needed to lay down for a moment, be calm and don't attract too much attention. They would be my very liberators, those who would set me free. I would slip through their fingers like the sands of Tatooine. I had managed to escape the grip of the Dark Side once, I could do it again.

This time it was a bit different. It was a real place, not a mental state.

The chosen hour was approaching. Slowly, I was checking my plan again and I was ready. Better, I was hanged.

Because that was my plan! Playing the suicide card! I had plenty of cloth to make the rope, the plumbing had held me for seven years while I tried to make some exercise...it would hold me even in that occasion, I was sure. Most of all I was sure because I would let me hang totally, I would hold myself up using the Force. It was all a trick.

When the soldier in charge to bring me my dinner entered in my cell and saw me hanging there, I saw him jumping in his tracks for the surprise. I have to say I didn't think I was such a good actor but I was doing good playing dead. So good that before he called for help, he came closer to check if I was really dead. Too close.

He was scared to death, I could feel it. He was as scared as I was. If he discovered I was alive, I was dead, this time for real. My plan would happily go out of the window and I would have to start all over again with a totally different strategy. Or die in the span of half a second.

That was the critical moment. That moment signed the difference between freedom and prison, between life and death. My life and my death, to be precise.

But my will to live and get out of there was stronger than the soldier's training. When he was close enough to me I acted. I pulled my legs up to my chest and hit him squarely in his chest with both my feet, causing him a shock strong enough to cut his breath out and sending him crashing against the other wall behind him.

Before he could call for help I jumped down the rig and before he could grab his weapon I was over him. He wasn't wearing his helmet so my job was easier. With a quick move, I hit him at his throat with my elbow so he wasn't able to talk anymore. Just to be sure, I broke both his arm twisting them hard then I placed one hand behind his neck and one under his chin and twisted his neck until it snapped in two.

I stared straight into his eyes for a moment as he died. I could literally see his life abandon his body. He was a rookie, probably the other soldiers thought he was barely a kid. It felt like killing a brother, I had shared so many victories with his fellow clones, most of all those of 501° Legion, the one I had fought with for so long. It just felt wrong. In his eyes I could see the terror as he stared straight at his killer while life slipped from him like water. I felt the chilling breath of death as he went rigid for a moment then felt limply on the floor like an empty sack. It was the same feeling I had every day, the feeling of imminent danger that hanged on me like a ton of durasteel. It gave me the creeps.

I shoved the thought aside and went back to my plan. Stripping his armor and wear it.

The armor was a bit tight, but it worked. He had left the helmet just outside the cell, so I fetched it before finishing the job. I had to make him unrecognizable. And that was the most gruesome think I had ever done. I had to beat him until not even Jango Fett could recognize him. That way, I could at least have a couple of hours of advantage on them, to put some distance between us. It wasn't a great feeling.

Almost effortless, I slipped the slipknot around his neck and hoisted him up where minutes before I was standing. This time though, there was really a corpse.

With that done, I wore the helmet and exited, then closed the door behind me. Half of the plan was done. Now, let's get the other half done: discover where the heck I was and retrieving my things.

I walked down the hallway and turned right. The first door on the left the sentry box and the access to the storage room with the personal effects of the prisoners. In the box there was a computer with all the information I needed.

The operative system hadn't changed since the days of the Republic, they had just changed the symbol with the one of the Empire and some names. I typed the ID code of the clone I had killed and entered. After that, I typed my ID code and got all the results I needed.

_Name: Anakin_

_Surname: Skywalker_

_ID Name: 100389_

_Planet of birth: Tatooine; Birth place: Unknown_

_Date Of Birth: Unknown_

_Age: 29_

_Date of Death: -_

_Current Civil Status: Unmarried_

_Occupation: Kedi Master_

_Crimes: Attempted Homicide._

_Sentence: Life Sentence._

There was everything I needed, I just had to change the date of death and I was ready to go. I checked the clock of the computer to get the current date.

If I hadn't completely gone crazy, that was my son's birthday. I had picked the perfect day, hadn't I?

Once I had the death confirmed, a pop up window opened with the order to take the personal effects of the deceased and destroy them and there was the location of the box in the corner of the window. I typed the order to open the storage room. My box was in the corner of a rusty shelf. I checked the numbers on the box, the numbers were correct. I opened the box and and checked the contents. There was everything. My clothes, my lightsaber...everything I had arrived with except the wedding ring that I wore around my neck.

I returned for a second at the computer and looked for any clue about where the heck that prison was. Easier said than done actually. I had to dig through huge amounts of meaningless files and information, not to mention that place seemed to be unknown even to the Empire itself. Then, finally, while I was looking for a star map or something I found the map of the sector. I was on Blenjeel! The maximum security Republican prison for war criminals, that's where they had sent me! Practically, in the midst of nothing, on a planet with few human settlements and endless deserts populated by some of the most hideous creatures of the Galaxy. The closest city was about nine miles north of the prison and probably a spaceport with a doubtful reputation. Well, I couldn't afford anything else in the end. At least I knew where I was and how to get away from that hellish planet!

Excuse me for my language but in that very moment I only wanted to yell a huge fuck you to everything. Nine miles in open desert, a desert populated by carnivore reptiles that crawled underneath the sand and could eat a large human being in one mouthful? Either I found a speeder or I was dead. Things weren't too good in that moment.

But in the end I was wearing an Imperial uniform, I could always borrow one of their speeders...

I could go. No, better, I had to go! That corpse in my cell wouldn't fool them for too long, it wouldn't have taken long before they found out the trick and give the alarm. And what an alarm!

I wore the helmet again and walked towards the exit with my box. Fortunately I didn't encounter anyone until the entrance. There the guard in the sentry box asked what I was doing with that box at that hour.

I tried to mask my voice. "One of the prisoners deceased some hours ago. He's been declared dead and I have been ordered to destroy his personal effects. Just bureaucracy." I said.

The soldier checked on the computer, then nodded. "Oh, yes...389. I just received the notification. Perfect, you can go. Have you finished your shift?" he asked amicably.

I nodded. "Just now. This is my last assignment for the night. I was hoping I could catch a speeder and go to the city and have something to drink." I lied badly, but I tried to sound as convincing as I could.

"Sure. Catch the one you want, the keys are in the hangar. Half of the squadron is out there. Try to avoid bar brawls and have fun!"

I took a deep, relieved breath.

"Sure I will! Thank you again!"

He opened the door. The sun was setting and it cast an orange light on the rocky desert. I had to move because the desert is a rather cold place during night.

"See ya tomorrow!" I head him call from his place.

 _Tomorrow my ass_...I thought to myself as I set foot out of there for the first time.

I was free. I was really free, for real! I was out!

I just needed to get that speeder and change clothes, then I would really have been free. I was out! I was free!

As I practically ran towards the hangar that was situated on the right side of the prison, that was my only thought. I couldn't get those words out of my mind, it was like a broken record that kept repeating the same words. I was out, I was free, the plan had worked perfectly!

I grabbed the keys if the first speeder I could find and jumped in, then stormed out of the hangar pushing it as fast as it could go. The first thing I did, when I was far enough, was getting rid of the helmet, then, a couple of miles ahead, I stopped and abandoned the rest of the armor and wore my old clothes. It felt so good! Finally something that wasn't as rigid as the armor or so rough and raw like the prison uniform. Finally I was in my element again. Once I hanged my lightsaber to my battle belt and donned my cloak, I re-started the engine and ran through the desert to the spaceport.

Now I had to find a transport to Coruscant.


	5. Back In Her Arms Is Where He'll Be

**Chapter 5 - Back In Her Arms Is Where He'll Be**

The same moment I restarted the engines after I had changed clothes, a strange sensation came up from the bottom of my heart. Suddenly all the anxiety, the fear...gone! I was free, both physically because finally I wasn't confined in those four walls anymore, but also I was free from the Empire and its barbarian ways to deal with people.

And I was more determined than before. I wanted to find my family more than anything. I didn't give a damn if I had suffered more than it was even thinkable. The scars I bore meant nothing. I was a free man, not just an ID number written on a door. I was Anakin Skywalker, I was a free man.

I was free to do what I wanted and speak my mind without fear of the punishment. I was a Jedi and even if the Empire had tried to take it away from me but they didn't, fortunately. I still had some pride of what I was and the training I had received, and it was time to take it out. The Order wasn't dead, not yet at least. I didn't know how many of us were still alive, out there, scattered around the Galaxy fighting for survival, but I was there and I couldn't let down everything that had raised me. Even if I had to train every single Force Sensitive child of the Galaxy.

The Order would have survived. I didn't know how but we would have make it. It had almost been wiped out five thousands years before, after the Great Sith Wars, but the will of one was enough to make it flourish again. It might have taken a while, me might have had to fight, we probably would need some help, but we were definitely going to rise again from the dust and the Republic would have been restored. The Sith couldn't win this war. Vader and Sidious were going to have a fierce enemy to fight.

I swore it to myself as I drove towards the spaceport.

While I drove in open desert at max speed in the cool, twilight air, I closed my eyes for a moment and breathed deeply a couple of times. The air of that planet was almost uncontaminated. It felt like being born again, it felt like that day, after the Battle Of Coruscant, when after five months in the Outer Rim, I had stepped off that military transport right outside the Senate, and she was there waiting for me.

Unfortunately, that day was so different from this one...first of all, she wasn't there. But I had already come to terms with that. I knew I had to walk a lot before I could find her. Find them, actually. And I was a different man. I wasn't that reckless child I was seven years before. I had grown, I was almost thirty years old, and I assure you: seven years of prison, in those conditions, change you. They rip you apart and put you back together. And, sincerely, I hoped I had become a better man.

And looking back, when I had been arrested and everything, I was twenty two, and I was really nothing but a spoiled child. And arrogant, to say the least. All the talking about me being the Chosen One had filled my mind with great expectations that obviously weren't mirrored in reality. I still thought I could live large and that everyone would praise me for everything I did. I wanted to be the greatest Jedi of the Galaxy, to say the least. Qui Gonn had seen something in me. He had really seen the desire to become a great Jedi, the will to help people. Problem: while I grew up, that desire to help people and right the wrong of the Galaxy, that feeling slowly had become the will to redeem myself and my past as a slave. And the will to become great and powerfull.

What an idiot.

No, really, I was an idiot for so long! As luck had it, I managed to open my eyes before I did some bullshit.

Well, no, sometimes I had acted like a total dork many times. Too many indeed. But I still had time and will to redeem myself. I had to expiate my sins after all. And I needed it.

I had already started my path of redemption, years before, when I had been arrested. The day I had to choose for both me and Padmè. Not to mention our son. And that was the worst day of my whole life.

That day I had to choose between the apparently fast and easy way, take her and run away as fast as we could, go somewhere remote and live there, start another life and leave everyone else to die or take the hard and long one that in the end showed it was the best choice I had ever taken. I warned Obi-Wan, I gave him the chance to warn someone and then I trusted Padmè's life in his hands. Then I resigned myself to Sidious. I was playing his game.

And because I knew myself I knew that the second option had been the best one. Maybe I had made the difference, maybe not, still I had given them the chance to save themselves or try to stop this madness.

I choose her, I saved her life and in the same time I saved mine. I left her, that's true, but I didn't lose her.

And that was the decision that had changed both our lives. For the better.

Suddenly I recalled a feeling I had years before, a moment when everything stood still. On the Invisible Hand, the admiral ship of the Separatist Fleet. The day I killed Dooku. I felt a cold shiver running down my spine that made me jolt on the seat.

I remembered every moment of that mission, since when me and Obi-Wan had been recalled from the sieges, the tensed hours before we got to Coruscant, the frantic moments of the space battle...everything. Every step I had taken in those hallways echoed in my mind as if I was watching an holo of my life. And what I was looking at didn't please me.

I saw Dooku's terrified eyes, the panic that reflected in them when, after I had severed his arms, I was keeping him hanging on, unable to decide what to do. I remembered the thousands of thoughts that passed in my mind that day, ranging from vengeance for the same arm he had severed almost three years before, to mercy for that old man.

Most of all I remembered Palpatine's cold voice as he ordered me to kill him. It was so different...it was strange and creepy. Still, I listened to him even if that order sounded so weird coming from him! And that moment triggered something in my mind, at a subconscious level.

For three years I had seen the worst of the Galaxy. War, death, suffering of million of innocent people that strove to survive in that power play of two powers too big for them to understand. I remember the anxiety I felt every time I had to tell to someone that his or her brother, father, sister or whatever had died. It was terrifying and for three years I had to live like that, close to death and pain, at such an intensity that in the end I had grown used to it. But that day something had changed. I had already killed in the past, many times actually, but no one had ever asked for mercy. Well, don't count the Tusken on...I couldn't control me that night.

I though everything was over at that point. Instead I returned home just to plunge in a chasm of terror and pain. The worst three months of my life. Palpatine's kidnapping had left a huge hole in the Jedi pride, included mine. The Chancellor wanted us to stand aside and for the Force's sake he had all the rights to do it since he held the reins of the Republic. He wanted all the space and the time to make his plan work and bring me to his side. That's why he kept the others away. The more I lost trust in them, the more I walked closer to the Dark Side.

I fought with all my might those dreams and visions that kept disturbing my sleep. Every night the same story, the same torture. I was literally going crazy, and I couldn't understand.

Then finally the Council decided to make me a Master and that was like a thunder in a clean sky. I was a Master, everything I had always wanted to be and I had fought for. I was at peace with the universe. Those dreams that haunted me like a bird of prey with a small animal...they disappeared. Too bad for Sidious that only a tiny but significant decision could change, better, destroy his whole plans and thirteen years of machinations. I had changed direction... and suddenly Sidious' plan just went out of the window.

He deserved to die. He and his damned apprentice, Vader. Both of them. It's not Jedi style to wish for the death of someone but in that particular situation, I guess I can be forgiven.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't notice the skyline of the spaceport appearing on the horizon. Short buildings, built underground with a domed roof, typical desert buildings, designed to be useful more than appealing.

It wasn't so different from Mos Espa in the end. Nightclubs were all open and they were full of soldiers that as soon as their shift finished ran away and found refuge in places like that. A sporadic traveler, merchants (some honest some not so much) but most of all bounty hunters and smugglers. They all sat lazily in front of the clubs, enjoying the cool air of the incoming night, a beer or stronger alcoholic drink in their hands, or worse, a death stick. Here and there you could spot women of doubtful reputation. Everything normal in the end.

I parked the speeder just outside the first houses and walked towards the center of the small city. It wasn't huge, but in the end it just needed a stocking area big enough for the Imperial ships and everyone would be fine with that. No one would ever live on Blenjeel, that was sure. And if you did, either you were desperate or were looking for some high risk business.

It was like being home again, just twenty years older and with a greater knowledge of languages. There was every kind of people in that city. Somehow, the audience of the Boonta Eve was boring!

I hastened my pace and followed the directions for the spaceport. I knew I could find something in that place, a small cargo, a single-seated ship...there was something, that was sure.

And if I was lucky enough, I could steal an Imperial cargo. If they had kept the design of the republican ones, they were made for long trips and were equipped with showers and bunks. And I needed both of them. A long shower and some hours of sleep.

The problem was that I had to steal it in first place, and I had to find the reserved zone of the spaceport to see what I had to deal with.

Finally I found it, in the eastern part of the city. It was a small building, with a high metallic fence enclosing it. I could see some ships stocked behind the fence. It didn't have too many security guards. It would be so easy to get in!

The fence was old and rusted. I found an existent hole and sneaked in, unnoticed.

Taking advantage of the darkness and the scarce light, I slowly sneaked in the administration offices through an open window. At that late hour, all the stocking operation had ceased and there was no one in there. There was a computer and and I had free access to it.

I used again the ID code of the clone I had killed and I entered into the system. It was still valid. Apparently, they hadn't discovered my escape yet.

I looked at the list and I found the ship I needed. Hangar 17, docking station 5.

It was time to leave that godforsaken place of the universe.

I got out of the office and walked down the long hallway that led to the various hangars of the port until I found hangar 17. And there I stopped.

There was someone inside, I could hear voices. I slowly opened the door and cautiously stepped in, aided by the shadow that engulfed most of the room.

Sitting at a small table there were four clones, probably the only security guards on duty, that relaxed there between a round and another, chatting, drinking and playing a sabaak match. One single light bulb lit the table, the rest of the hangar was dark. And that allowed me to listen.

They were chatting about orders when one of them, probably the head of the squad, received a text message on the comlink. He made a strange smirk while he read, a mix to stupor and annoyance, then he reattached the device to his belt.

"Now this is a first! Someone just committed suicide, down at the prison." he exclaimed, reaching for his cards.

Fantastic, my plan had worked better than what I had expected.

"Who?" asked another clone.

"100389. He made a rope out of his uniform and hanged himself to the plumbing." he replied, throwing a card on the table.

"Are you jocking, aren't you?" asked another one, his voice reduced to a whisper. His face was a must see! He looked like he had just seen a ghost. "Did you read the ID right?"

The chief nodded. "Sure I read it right! Do you think I'm that stupid?"

"No Lieutenant...it's just that...I worked at the prison for some time before they moved me here and that ID was assigned to Anakin Skywalker."

The thickest of silence fell in the room. "Anakin who?" asked the one I could not see.

"Anakin Skywalker. One of the most powerful Jedi of the Galaxy. He was one of my commanders for some time, years ago. It's strange to think that he's dead now!"

That clone was a veteran! I didn't think there were more of them left around. I kept on listening.

"Wait a sec, wasn't Anakin Skywalker the Jedi that tried to kill the Emperor, years ago?"

The veteran nodded. "Yep, that's him. He was in prison right for that crime. He should have remained in prison until death. I admit that when the news spread I couldn't believe it, then when they published the dynamics of the Jedi plan to overthrow the Republic I understood many things!"

"Such as?"

"Such as all Jedi are trash we need to delete from the Galaxy. We're here because they ordered that clone army, we fought a stupid war and it was their fault and now we have to chase them and guard them too. Sincerely, I would have preferred they stuck their idea of a clone army right where I say." replied the lieutenant angrily. "I preferred not to be born, with everything considered. And even if they would have released him, he wouldn't have make it far. Even with the Jedi Order still standing.

"Why?" asked another one.

"Because he violated practically every rule of their so called code. Sometime after his incarceration someone released the rumor he had been killed. After that the holonet released the news that they had many scoops about his life. I don't really know what's true and what's false, but the only certain thing is that he got married."

The other exchanged strange looks. "But the Jedi couldn't get married!"

"I know, but he did nonetheless. If they discovered him, he would have been expelled from the Order. Not to mention that he didn't just marry a commoner!"

"Ah, yeah now I remember! Didn't he marry that Senator...damn I can't remember the name! She's dead too, isn't she?"

The lieutenant nodded again. "Exactly. Soon after the declaration of the Empire. It seems she had a congenital heart defect. Things that happen...she was beautiful though...Somehow I understand him, she was definitely a beauty. If we had women like that here, everyone of us would always ask to come here after the end of the shift!"

Nice lie they had created! Obi-Wan was a genius, that's sure. The last sentence though...I didn't like it much.

"Sad story. Poor thing...I'd say that after his wife death and all those years in that cell..at least now he has found some peace!"

"Next time he'll be more careful. You can't try to kill the Emperor and hope you can get through it! Anyway, I fear there's something wrong..."

Oh come on! It was clear that someone could have suspects about the suicide thing, no plan is perfect but that clone was really getting on my nerves! I grabbed the hilt of my lightsaber and stood there some more minutes.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean he's a Jedi, and Jedi are capable of everything. I don't know, maybe he killed one of the guards and wore his uniform so he could get out! No one knows how you look like in there, if he managed to make him unrecognizable enough, they could take one face for the other without problems!"

He was smart, I have to admit it. "And do you remember that Jedi we looked everywhere for? The one that reduced Vader to a piece of coal?" the others nodded. "Well, he was Skywalker's Master! If the two of them manage to get back together, there will be troubles for us! You saw them in action, you can confirm!"

At that point I stood up and turned on my lightsaber. It was time to get out, and those four were only blocking me,

The hiss of my blade filled the room and they jolted in their chairs, then they stood themselves. They had left their blasters the Force knows where and it was incredibly easy to kill them. They didn't even had the chanche to realize there was someone behind them. Four blows and they were dead, without a breath. Very dead.

Killed by a dead man...life is strange sometimes!

Anyway, I didn't stay there any second more. I found the hangar computer and opened the dome then I ran to the docking station. Yep, it was definitely a cargo ship Republican style, right what I needed. With that, its codes and its navicomputer, I could go pretty much everywhere.

I ran up the access ramp and pushed the button that closed it behind me. With that done, I found the cockpit and brought the system to a stand-by state, while I waited for the dome to be completely open. I heard the engine turn to life with a moan that soon became the low, normal hiss of every hyperdrive engine, a low whisper that signaled everything was fine. I checked the propeller. There was enough to get on Coruscant and return. I could go to Coruscant and then anywhere in the Galaxy without a refuel.

When the dome above me was completely open, I started maneuvering out of there. I brought the ship up. Still no one went looking for me. I was rather good in undercover operation!

I left Blenjeel behind me some minutes after. From the orbit I could see the other systems around there, with their suns and stuff. I inserted the coordinates and set the autopilot after I had jumped in hyperspace.

I had eight yours before I could arrive on Coruscant.


	6. Slaying The Dreamer

**Chapter 6 – Slaying The Dreamer**

… _The mechanic hiss filled his ears as he tried to remain conscious. That soldier knew how to do his job, he was harmless and barely awake in the span of fifteen minutes. If he had been a normal man he wouldn't have been able to do anything for days, but he had a very powerful ally on his side. He already culd feel the strong healing powers of the Force coursing through his veins healing him as quick as it could._

_He could hear his heavy steps as he stepped in the chamber. Long, slow and careful, as if the man had balancing problems._

_He saw him walking towards him. In the dim light coming from the small window he looked more like a phamtom, a ghost of the man he was not many months before. He knew that the grimace on my face wouldn't have made he feel welcome and that was not what he wanted but he knew that even the littlest thing could unleash his wrath on him. And that wasn't the right moment, he was already wounded enough, he couldn't afford to sustain more injuries._

' _Good, now remember, he's not the man you knew...forget it!_ _He thought to myself before he felt the coppery taste of blood in his throat. He coughed and spit the blood on the already stained floor then tried to regain his composure as much as the situation allowed it. Cuffed, tied and forced to stand on his knees on the filthy floor...it wasn't easy._

_"Skywalker…" he started. The metallic voice echoed in the room, creating a sort of ghastly resonance._

_"Vader…" he sighed without much enthusiasm. Speaking, better whispering, was everything he could muster in that moment, and it was incredibly painful. He felt a throbbing, sharp pain at his right sid and he knew he had at least two broken ribs. His head was spinning, a sign he wasn't breathing as much as he needed to and he knew that only a miracle could spare him another admittance in the prison infirmary. "What do you want?"_

_He looked up for the first time at his opponent. It was the first time he saw him after he had been encapsulated in that life support suit. He was worse than what he had imagined. He was scary. With that mask that hid his breather he really looked like a ghost, or worse, one of those demos that filled the legends told by pilots and bounty hunters, back in Mos Espa, when he was a kid._

" _You know who did this to me, don't you?" he asked, briskly. That voice gave him the creeps._

_He took a deep breath, trying to endure the pain at his chest._

" _I believe so. I'm not sure though, we don't get many news in here." he murmured. "I don't know why though..."_

_He hoped he hadn't heard the last part. He knew perfectly well who and why he was in those conditions. He even knew where. He had felt it, through the Force, he had experienced it on his very body, not for long, but he had for a moment been in a tight connection with Vader. He had felt the fire burning his skin to the bone. He had felt it just like three days before he had felt his glee as he killed a Jedi he had hunted down for months._

_"You know well why! You felt it, didn't you? You and all the Jedi that..." he shouted. At that point it was easy to guess he had come to finish the job of the soldiers." it felt like he was laughing. Anakin closed his eyes trying to shove that thought away from his mind, the idea of what had happened that night that had formed in his mind. "After all those years...of being subdued...being forced to obey their orders...finally I could unleash my rage!"_

_Anakin lowered his gaze, trying to get those images out of his head._

" _Look at me!" he grasped his bruised chin and pulled his face towards him, looking straight in his eyes. "You damned Jedi! You abandoned me, six years ago and now...look what your Master has done to me!" he shouted again. "He almost killed me you know? All because of you!"_

_He was tired, but he felt the anger rising in him like a tidal way. He couldn't stand him. Once he could consider that man like a friend, they were almost the same age, they had both being Padawans until he had disappeared in the Outer Rim and Anakin had gone on his on way._

_Suddenly, his sight blurred for a moment. He shut his eyes tightly and when he opened them Vader stood not six inches away from his face. He didn't know if it was anger, fear or whatever other feeling that gave him the strength to react, but he managed to stand up and endure the excruciating pain that the gesture brought to him._

" _Then what the hell are you doing here? Kill me now! Come on! Do it! I'm harmless, it won't take long"_

_He fell on the floor again between the tinkling of the chains that held him up that mixed with the echo of his own voice._

_Vader knelt in front of him and looked at him for a moment, as if he was thinking about the proposal. Behind his mask, Anakin knew he was smiling evilly._

_"Skywalker, I don't want to kill you. Better, I would love to, but the Emperor wants you alive until he thinks you are useful to his purposes. He really thinks he can bring you to our side!" he hissed though his mask._

_"I will never join you!" he said, incredibly calm and cool. His voice was the mirror of his determination. "Never. He's the cause of what happened to you. He's using you, can't you understand? You're his pawn, he's the one to blame for all of this!"_

_At that point he felt Vader's wrath rising stronger than before, like a blizzard around them. As a reply, Vader lifted his hands and closed his fingers around the air, still it felt like Anakin's throat was being crushed._

" _You are the cause of everything! Of what they did to me, of...all of this! My Master wants you! He wants you, not me!" he screamed as much as the breather and the voice synthesizer allowed him to._

_That's the last thing he could remember, because about ten seconds later, Anakin lost consciousness._

I had fallen asleep.

With the adrenaline rush completely depleted from my system, I felt strange. I was numb, sleepy...it felt like I had taken an anesthetic not to mention the splitting headache that made me dizzy.

I have to say that the dream woke me with a start, like a high voltage electric discharge.

It wasn't a great way to wake up. It wasn't even such a great dream, most of all because it was a nightmare based on a real life memory. It was the first time I had seen Vader with his mask. And it was the first time I had been admitted to the infirmary.

No, it wasn't definitely a good way to wake up. At all. Most of all because it's that kind of nightmare that once it woke me up, I couldn't get to fall asleep anymore. And it happened rather often, not only that nightmare but many more. They were all like movies made out of the worst experiences of my life. The night at the Tusken camp was one of the worst, for example.

I wiped away the sweat from my forehead and took a deep breath. I still felt numb. I hate those moments after an adrenaline overload, every time it happened I felt like that. I could have slept for forty eight hours straight not to mention that the weakest breath of wind could tip me over. I really needed a huge dose of coffee, hoping there was some in the crew cabin.

I stood up and stretched my aching limbs. Sleeping on the pilot chair was never a good idea. And considering that I had the whole crew cabin all for me, it was even stupid. I was really exhausted.

Right after I had inserted the autopilot I locked myself in the restroom. Probably I stayed under the shower spray for an hour or at least until warm water lasted. It had been months since the last time I had the chance to shower, from the last admittance in the infirmary for a dislocated left shoulder. You can imagine how much I needed it.

Once I had finished, I gathered all my courage and looked at my reflection in the mirror. I couldn't even bear the thought of doing it before the shower.

I wasn't such a good thing to look at, even after I had washed months of grime off of me. Long beard, even longer and tousled hair...I really needed a radical change. I looked for a pair of scissors and cut my hair in a similar way as I bore it seven years before, probably a little longer then I took care of my beard.

I decided I didn't want to shave completely. The only image the Empire had of me was seven years old, I was shaved and still in neat condition. I knew that if you need to hide and in the past you used to shave every morning, one of the best disguise was keeping your beard long. I just shortened it, it wasn't as long as Obi-Wan's back in the days before the war but at least it was now trimmed to a decent length. It should have done good.

Anyway, I was a different man when I had emerged from the restroom. I looked a little more as myself. At least that!

I had checked the computer and I had fallen asleep right there and then, just to wake up six hours later.

In the crew cabin I looked for something to eat and stuff like that, but I only found military rations and instant coffee, the same they gave in prison for breakfast. Better than nothing, it was still caffeine.

With the steaming cup in my head, I returned at my place in the cockpit. There was a light on the ship console that wasn't turned on when I had gone away five minutes before. I had almost arrived on Coruscant. I toggled off the autopilot and jumped out of hyperspace. It was in incredible show, the planet I once called home was right there in front of me in all its magnificence. Everything like before, nothing seemed to have changed at least from that distance.

I received a quite fast message from the port authority of the planet.

" _Here's Port Control Center, please identify yourself._ " normal routine, administrated by not so smart droids with reasoning processors not so evolved. Threepio was a bit smarter.

I looked for the ID code of the ship and when I found it, I transmitted the codes and everything they asked for.

"Do you need a refuel?" asked the droid. Good sing, it seemed like they hadn't discovered, or reported, the theft yet.

Well, since I could take advantage of the Empire... I sent a confirm.

" _Please wait, we're confirming your authorizations._ " replied the droid from ground control.

I was sweating at that point. I had the terrifying feeling that something could go wrong and that suddenly they would discover the trick and my identity and threw at me I don't know how many starfighters. I needed to be as anonymous as I could in order to keep my ass safe on get in touch with someone of the Rebellion if I could find one. If they discovered the trick, I was in huge troubles.

" _Your codes have been confirmed. Please send the cargo list._ "

I started breathing normally again then I sent the list of the things in the cargo hold. Not much in the end.

" _You're authorized for landing on Dock 66, docking station 101. In case you need assistance, ask to the local crew_."  _-End of Transmission-_

Fantastic, I was safe! They sent the codes I needed for the landing then I brought the ship down in the atmosphere and headed for the port I had been sent to. It was a bit far from the Temple but well, I couldn't get everything easy and done!

As I drove the ship there, I thought again about that damned nightmare. I couldn't get it out of my head. I needed to get a grip on myself or knowing myself something could have gone wrong. Very wrong.

Once I had landed and secured the ship to the ground I handed to codes to the dock crew that immediately started the refuel and checking on the engine. Normal routine.

When I got out of the spaceport, I looked around and tried to understand what was the shortest way to the temple. If I remembered correctly, there was a public transport just east of my position that could bring me a little closer to uptown.

Calmly, I walked down the road in the cool, windy winter air.

It was time to move.


	7. Your Smile Made My Sun Rise

I had a lot of luck that night. At that late hour of the evening, most of the workers and employes had already returned home from their job places and there weren't many pedestrian going around the city. Not to mention that once I stepped off the transport, I decided to take the long way around and use the trafficked streets and alleys of the lower levels, trying to mix with the crowd.

The lower levels had always fascinated me. I had never been there that often, the last time had been while chasing Zam Wessel, the bounty hunter that tried to kill Padmè, but I have to admit that the little universe packed in there was indeed interesting. I wasn't such a huge fan of the chaos that ruled down there, most of all of the crime, but as an observer, it wasn't that bad, being down there and look around myself, live a little, somehow.

But in that moment I didn't have enough time to think about it. I was walking fast, dodging pedestrians around me, trying to keep my emotions down. I was crossed by a strange mix of feelings, a mix of anger and desperation because I knew that in the same moment I had stepped in the Temple I would have felt like...well, not too good. That place was a graveyard, it wasn't my home anymore.

I was trying to convince myself and I felt the cool air of the city whipping around me, calming me and slowly, as I walked, I found myself more relaxed and calm.

Anyway, I tried to focus on something else and tried to have a closer look on what was going on around me. The city itself hadn't changed much since the last time I had seen it, there was the usual traffic that could cause a migraine to the most calm man of the Galaxy but it was more...it was neater. Apparently, the Empire had succeeded where the Republic had failed: get a grip on the traffic.

At least something decent enough...

But soon enough I understood why: the soldiers handled traffic the same way they treated prisoners back on Blenjeel. If you do something wrong, you risk your neck. It was a matter of survival then...

I silently kept walking, never looking back.

It took me two hours to arrive. If I had used the fast way, I would have risked everything. There was a huge deployment of troops in that city, not to mention sentinel droids. I didn't want anyone to recognize me, or even spot someone that looked like me. I preferred to walk a bit more, taking advantage of the darkness and use that time to get there as calm as I could, not to mention be mentally prepared for what I would have to face in there.

I was as tensed as the dome of the Opera House. My neck was as stiff as a branch of dry wood, probably because of the position I had slept in, and I had a really bad feeling. I really didn't feel at the top in that moment.

And when I arrived in front of the Temple, I felt my stomach churn and twist as if it was alive. If the lights had been turned on, I would have looked just like as I had left it. I stopped for a moment in front of the staircase that led up to the entrance and I felt the nausea twist again my guts a couple of times. How many times had I run up those steps that as a child looked endless and as a teenager was the perfect ground for a challenge with the other Padawans? I tried to think about how many of them might still be alive. Not too many I fear.

I took some other seconds for myself before start walking again and heading to the eastern side of the Temple, where one of the secret entrances was situated. Not many knew they existed, and even less knew how and where to find them. They were so hidden that at a casual look they could be exchanged for tiles of the pavement. That was the good part! I still like to think that someone might have been able to get out of there safe and sound using those exits, when the Empire attacked the Temple. I managed to reach the closest and using the Force I opened the lock on the other side. The tile slipped open and I sneaked inside, closing the trapdoor behind me.

I wasn't hoping for a quiet and easy job. I though the key lock would be a little tighter to open, instead it was nothing but a game. I reached in front of me, blind in the dark of that cramped space, and found the other door. Once I found the handler, I pushed it and the door opened without a sound. There were no guards, no motion sensors, nothing. I was prepared to make a massacre but there was no one in there.

I was alone.

I was terribly alone.

But I had to be there, no matter how painful, hard and repulsive it might be, I had to be there. And I would have taken all the time I needed to get the job done, I didn't care what I would have found in the halls, what kind of terrible feeling I would get, I had to do it. Nothing scared me, only myself. I had to know how many had died that day, what had happened in those seven years and where the heck might be my family.

And if that meant hacking into the Imperial demographic database (as I supposed it was called after the reconversion of the Republic into Empire), and I was sure I would have to do it, well, I would have done it! I wasn't some kind of computer geek, still I knew what to do. There were guys that were far better than me though. I wasn't a genius, but I knew how to crack databases. I had done it for years!

I leaned on the wall for a second. I took a deep breath and braced myself for what was waiting for me at the end of that hallway. I realized I was nothing but the shadow of what, for thousand years, had been taught in there. A not so similar shadow, if I thought about it. I was a fugitive, a runaway that struggled for his freedom, a dead man walking. I was the shadow of the once great Order of the Jedi.

I was nothing. Nothing because I didn't exist anymore, officially. For the Galaxy, I was dead. Everything I had fought for had been lost. I didn't know where my family was and...

I was loosing myself into my thoughts just as a few hours before, one that ship, when I had woken up. That damn dream still haunted me, like the other times. I hated that part of being so Force sensitive. I captured my memories, most of all the bad ones, like an holo and sometimes they came out from nowhere just to tease me in my sleep. I hated that and Obi-Wan was right. I had to learn how to stop them, or at least I had to learn how to not letting them make me do foolish things, considering the bad effect dreams had on me. Some managed only to upset me for a couple of hours, others made me act in such ways I was too ashamed to remember, and he was the only one who could teach me how to do that.

I sighed and I forced myself to go on. I had started something, for once in my life I had to complete it.

"May the Force be with me," I whispered as I walked down the long corridor.

My steps echoed in the narrow hallway that led to the Hall of a Thousand Fountains, the main hall of the Temple. I pushed the last hidden door open and I it felt like being hit over by a pod. The air was saturated with the smell of death, a mix of blood, dust and burnt things. Something I really hoped not to smell anymore. It was terrible and it was multiplied by the reverberating Force that was still in turmoil after so many years. The whole Temple felt as if it was engulfed in a crystal ball of pain and hate, I could feel the Force telling me things, bringing up flashes of that night. I could almost see the ghostly figures of young Padawans that tried to defend themselves from the troops and Vader, more experienced knights fall under his relentless attacks...it felt like a needle stuck straight behind my eyes.

I could feel the chilling presence of Death itself in there as if it was a physical presence and not only a freaky joke going on in my mind. It made my skin crawl and I felt it like a huge weight on my shoulders that pinned me down while I tried to concentrate and move from that spot. It felt like being nailed to the floor. I had to reactivate the energy generator if I wanted to try anything in there.

I had barely made a couple of steps forward when I felt like a wave in the Force washing over me, and after that, I could hear, and see, what had happened that night. Not the ghostly silhouettes, the real deal. It felt like being there for real. I closed my eyes but it was in my head, I couldn't stop it. The Force wanted me to see what had happened. It was something similar to the visions I had on Nevlaan, years ago.

Even if I knew it was all fake, that it was only in my head, I can't even start describing how it terrified me on a subconscious level. Really, even after so many years I still can't find the words to describe it. It gripped my guts so tight I was about to vomit right there.

I gathered all my courage and moved on, better, I ran towards the staircase, on the other side of the hall, dodging fictional blaster shots and when I finally reached the door of the staircase, I pushed it open just enough to slip inside and then shut it closed again. The vision finally stopped and I was again in the empty Temple, everything was silent and dark...everything was normal. I leaned on the door as I felt the instinct to throw up hit me like a punch in my face but nothing came. I just stood there, bracing on the door as I tried desperately to regain a certain composure, at least enough to concentrate. What I had just seen was unbearable to say the least.

But being out of the Hall helped me a lot. In the span of a couple of minutes, nausea had gone and I was breathing normally again. Even the Force was a bit quieter in there.

That massacre would haunt that place for years. Maybe decades.

For a moment, I had a flashback of nearly twenty years before. I was probably twelve and a friend and I were running around the Temple right after a saber training session. We were tired but it was spring time and the air was warm and there was a bright sun outside, so our Masters had allowed us to get some fresh air on one of the terraces before dinner. It had been a nice afternoon, and probably some of those who were with me that day were dead by now.

When I got used to that haunting feeling I moved again. It was a bit easier once I got used to it still I held the hilt of my weapon tightly in my hand, just in case. I didn't want any bad surprise that night.

I headed towards the library first, I had to check what worked and what didn't.

Obviously, nothing worked. Better, the computers booted up, that meant the energy generator was still running, but there was no access to the network. I went in the control room and found the cause of the problem: someone had pulled the cables, cutting every connection with the rest of the world off. Nothing too bad, I just had to connect them again, finding the right socket for each cable. Thirty times. It took me nearly twenty minutes to get the job done but in the end every computer in the Temple were online. I had to get used to that, in a matter of months, wiring stuff would be my daily fix.

Too bad some cables were damaged and once I tried to access the network it didn't work. Shit. I had to go for Plan B: bypass the system and access through the private Council mainframe, from the Council chamber. And if they had found the memory stick with my codes, I was totally fucked and my only chance was hacking through the system. Crack the Council mainframe...easy, isn't it?

Like hell it is! That's the best protected computer of the Empire! I prayed that the memory stick was still there as I ran up the stairs to the Chamber.

I had managed to wire up everything I could, I hoped it would have worked. And I hoped I could find some peace up there. Well, I tried at least.

I gathered all my courage again and entered. It felt like doing something blasphemous enough to be killed.

Once again, I felt like being washed over by a wave. Something wrong had happened even up there. I saw the footprints on the floor, bloody footprints. An adult and...I don't know how many kids.

That bastard had killed the kids too, right in the place they thought they were safe. It was unbearable, I felt the rage seething in me, flowing in my veins alongside with my blood...it felt like a thunderstorm. I found myself breathing heavily as I tried to contain my anger and when I finally I though I was calm enough to stand the idea of what had happened in there, I opened my eyes and I looked out of the window. There was still the crack in the window that I had created seven years before when I had decided what to do. Nothing had changed much.

I reached what had been Obi-Wan's chair and dropped on the dusty floor looking under the edge, in the far left corner. After a couple of seconds I felt the sticky tape I had used to attach the stick to the metallic structure of the chair and...and the memory stick was there. They hadn't found it! I took a deep, relieved sigh when I managed to pull it out of there. I sat down in the same chair and booted up the computer. I was asked to type the code in order to access the mainframe and I typed it in, copying it from the file in the flash memory.

I was in.

For a moment, I leaned on the armrest. I was exhausted. The heavy atmosphere and the tension of the escape were taking their toll on me. They were sucking every ounce of energy left in my body and mind, but I had to hold on and keep going. I couldn't just give up on that, not just because I was tired!

I sighed deeply again. It felt like the really first time I had set foot in that Chamber.

I closed my eyes shut for a moment, trying to get rid of the heavy haze of tiredness that threatened to make me fall asleep right there and then then I checked if there had been hacking attempts in the mainframe. The traces were visible, indeed, there were huge damaged sectors, fortunately not those I needed, and there was a long list to attempts to decrypt the access sequence. Fortunately, 240-digit cryptography has its advantages. They had tried to hack in the holocron, someone had managed get access to Obi-Wan's and my data, and I supposed it was Vader, but those were public files on the other computer network, a little less protected than this one.

The internal net was intact though, and that allowed me to access the Imperial network without being detected. I really didn't mind the fact that I didn't have to hack into anything. The link was a bit slow, but I could work with that.

From that position though I could do some nasty things. I could destroy all the data and cause a bureaucratic apocalypse in the Empire, causing a month-lasting havoc. The idea made me smile. It might be a nice joke, but I let it go. I wasn't a damn anarchist that wanted the destruction of power itself. I wanted the obliteration of the Sith. And who knows, maybe the Rebel Alliance I had heard of in prison might use some sensible data contained in those huge servers, in the near future. I left it as it was and I concentrated on gathering information about this newborn Alliance. I looked for news, data, possible prisoners...there wasn't much, just a couple of reports about skirmishes in the Outer Rim but nothing serious.

After that, I looked for any news about my escape. Still nothing, at least on the holonet. On the internal network of the Empire though there was a warning to keep a close eye on a man whose description could be similar to the Anakin Skywalker of seven years before. Fortunately, in that moment, I totally looked different.

After that I accessed to the demographic database. I had to start from somewhere! I typed Padmè's complete name and waited. Much to my surprise, on the screen appeared a pop up window. A window programmed to open up only if her name would have been typed from that particular computer. There was a message with a date. It was six years old.

" _Look under my chair. Disconnect."_ That was all it said.

I obeyed and shut off the computer, then I looked again under his chair. Blindly, I looked for something stuck under the metallic structure until my fingers closed around something rather strange. Paper. Two sheets of thick paper, with two different handwriting. From that spot though I couldn't see anything more than that so I stood up and walked closer to the window, hoping that the light coming from outside could help me see a bit better.

My heartbeat sped up slightly. I leaned on the cracked window and looked down at the paper.

" _Anakin, if you can read these lines, it means you are out of prison. I assure you that if I could know about it, I would be really happy. I guess you can understand I can't write our location on this sheet. The risk that someone can find these is too high, it's already risky enough to come to Coruscant and leave these few lines in the Temple. Anyway, you must know that I followed your advice and for some time we stayed with your brother and you must know that what happened to Vader is my own doing and I'm sorry if he hurt you blaming you for that. I hope you are alright and now let's go for the important stuff. Padmé is just fine, so are the children..."_

What the heck? I rubbed my weary eyes for a couple of seconds after reading the last word. My heart skipped a beat then started pounding even harder.

" _A_ _nd before you have a panic attack, you must know that Padmè was expecting twins, male and female. She didn't know herself, she didn't hide it from you. We discovered it barely some weeks before she gave birth. She decided to call them Luke and Leia. She hopes you like the names, but I think you don't care much about names right now. They are a year old right now, and one day we'll tell them the whole story, or maybe you'll be the one to tell them. And don't worry, I'm just playing the part of the uncle, I have no intention to do anything more than keeping them safe and watch them for you. I don't know when or if you'll ever read these lines but if you want a nice place to start looking for us, try on Naboo. Or with Tatooine"_

At least it was a beginning, even if it wasn't so precise. I knew he meant Padmè's family or my brother but I wished he could have been a bit more precise. I breathed deeply, trying to push back the tears and kept reading.

" _And, Anakin, I know you are angry and I can't blame you. They took you all what you cared for, they stole everything from you, even your name and what was bound to it. Please, don't give up and be careful. Don't fall to the Dark Side because if it happened I wouldn't think twice about chasing you and treat you the same way I did with Vader. Don't even think about facing him until you haven't found us, do you understand? First of all, you are a father now, then you are a Jedi. You have a wife and children to care about. If we have to face them, we'll do it together. May the Force be with you. Obi-Wan"_

…Wow…

I slowly slid down on the floor, my legs couldn't hold me anymore. I couldn't believe this. Twins? I was...I can't even find the words to describe the feeling I got from that news. It felt like when Padmè told me she was pregnant, just amplified a hundred times! I let my head fall on the cold glass behind me. I couldn't really believe it, it was...

Well, let's move on, it's better. Trying to find words to describe the indescribable is useless. You just need to know that when I was getting out of the Temple, I was so high with joy that I was cartwheeling!

I read the message again then I took the second sheet. Instantly I recognized her own handwriting. That was her own message.

" _Anakin, I know that this is not the best way to tell you, but I think that you have already read Obi-Wan's message. I was pregnant with twins, and I swear that I didn't know it, it was a surprise for everyone, I didn't keep you in the dark consciously. It was a shock, believe me! They are growing up fast, Luke is your clone. At least I think he is, but if he grows up like he's been doing for this year, he'll be blonde and with blue eyes, just like his father. He's a tiny adventurer! He's learning how to walk and he doesn't want anyone to help him while Leia is a bit more sensible and she let me help her. I miss you so much my love..."_

"I know Angel…" I whispered. "I miss you too..."

"… _please, be careful. I don't want to lose you. Find my family, they will help you, we're part of the Rebel Alliance and my father knows someone who can get you in, listen to him. I love you."_

"I love you too."

For endless moments my limbs refused to move, I just couldn't move. I just stared at that piece of paper for I don't know how long, crying like a child. Suddenly, all the pain and the sorrow of the last seven years didn't mean anything.

But I had to go, and fast.

I stood up and folded the papers carefully before tucking them in my pocket then I ran out as fast as I could then headed again for the spaceport. This time, with darkness on my side, I took the fast way around and it took me barely half an hour to get there. I didn't know why or how, but I knew that if I remained on Coruscant an hour more something bad would happen. I was in danger, I could feel it.

I took the ship and set off again.

Naboo was waiting for me.

 


	8. This Loneliness I Need To Be Who I Am

The same moment got out the atmosphere of the planet, I jumped in the hyperspace then inserted the autopilot and sagged on the pilot chair exhausted. I was in desperate need for sleep and fortunately I had at least twelve hours before getting to Naboo.

I dragged myself in the crew quarter and literally crumbled on the bunk bed and as soon as I touched the mattress I was sleeping. I was totally and unmistakeably worn out, it had been a lot since the last time my energies had been completely drained from me. Outside the prison at least.

It was a dreamless sleep, fortunately. It was like a long void, my brain had shut off completely and when I woke up, except for the usual numbness due to such a deep and long sleep, I felt really better. I had my energy back, most of all mental energy, and I had enough to get on Naboo and find the Naberries. Still I had to try and remember where they lived. I knew they lived in the southern part of Theed, a nice residential neighborhood, in one of those wonderful houses with huge gardens. The problem was getting there!

I stood up from the bunk and stretched. My neck was still hurting and stiff. As I stretched it, hoping it would get better because it was hurting bad, I walked to the cockpit.

"Come on Anakin! Stop whining!" I said to myself as I checked the navicomputer. Everything was just fine. No messages, estimated time of arrival said three hours and twenty five minutes, which meant I had slept almost nine hours straight.

In the crew cabin I found something to eat (military rations, nothing more) and had a sort of breakfast even if I didn't even know what time it was. Probably it was two in the afternoon on Coruscant and if I remembered correctly, Naboo was about three hours ahead. Doing the maths, I would get on Naboo in late afternoon and I would have to move quickly to get to the Naberries before night fell. You never know what kind of encounters you can make on a planet that's openly pro-Empire.

I tried to relax a bit, I managed to meditate for about an hour but the results weren't that good. My mind was elsewhere and even if my concentration had gotten better while I was in prison in that occasion I couldn't help but being distracted by everything. I was too agitated, I couldn't help it.

I had to do something though, and I decided I could check on the engine of the ship. I had two hours before I got on Naboo and I had to keep my mind occupied with something! That ship was brand new, coming straight from Incom, and still it needed some settings done. The hyperdrive needed some tuning, but that's normal. It's that kind of engine that needs some tuning after every long trip.

Anyway, I was checking the computer when it signaled we were less and a parsec away from Naboo. I let it calculate the best trajectory then jumped out of hyperspace. Perfect exist. I was straight in front of the planet, perfect alinement too.

I hadn't lost the magic touch in the end.

Right before I entered in the atmosphere and started the landing procedure I receive a message from the port authority. They informed me that due to some work in progress in the main spaceport of Theed I had to land in one of the minor ones. They signaled there was one in the southern part of the city that was well serviced by public transports and from there I could get anywhere I needed.

Just perfect, since while I was meddling with the engine I had recalled the way to the Naberries residence and if my memory didn't fail me, that spaceport wasn't too far from there. Probably ten miles.

I filled the forms for the permission to land with names and data I made up in that very moment (the only important thing was the ID number of the ship, who cares if the name of the pilot is the name of a Jedi deceased ten years before!).

At the moment of landing, I let the autopilot do its job and just enjoyed the show in front of me. I admit it, sometimes it's just good letting the navigating systems do the job. Most of all because I was taking advantage of Imperial stuff. And I loved it!

The show was simply incredible. I had been rather often on Naboo, but I had been in Theed just a couple of times and once I was barely a kid and I was a bit too occupied to notice the beauty of the city. Not to mention that when I had been there ten years before as Padmè's bodyguard I had more than a motive not to look outside of the windshield. As for the other times, I headed straight to the southern hemisphere of the planet, to the Lake Region. After that day, I had never set foot in Theed again.

It was a magnificent city. The exact contrary of Coruscant, worlds apart from Mos Espa. Just being able for once to look out of the window and enjoy it was incredible. We flew over the southern side of the city and a couple of miles from the royal palace, built on the top of a small hill. It looked like the last time I had seen it. But this time there wasn't Queen Jamilla waiting for us, ready to help Padmè every way she could. There weren't battles raging a couple of parsecs away, I wasn't tormented by nightmares about my mother and my wife wasn't with me.

I sighed and waited for the landing. As soon as the ship touched the ground, I opened the ramp and jumped off the ship. The spaceport was incredibly crowded, probably due to the deviations of traffic. All those people coming and going gave me a certain advantage. There were a lot of weird characters in there, more visible than me and I don't really think that a thirty years old dressed in black is more visible than a Zabrak beating the guts out of a Rhodian for money matters.

And considering the small crowd that had formed around the two fighters, I was right.

A worker asked me to declare the cargo and how long I would stay there. Obviously I lied, telling him that I would set off again the next day. He told me that an hour of delay was enough to have the vehicle confiscated. I didn't care much, it was better that way. They would have gone looking for the owner and they would find a very dead Jedi and a disappeared Jedi leaving another fake name as ID.

Sometimes bureaucracy helped.

Once out of the spaceport, I started walking around the streets. I was closer than what I had expected to be. I started finding my horizons quite quickly, I recognized some names of the streets, some alleys...stuff like that. If my memory was right, it would have taken no more than an hour to get there. Just in time before night fell. The sun was already setting and I didn't like going around at night too much. There was still a high risk they didn't recognize me (after all, I had met them only once and it was ten years before) and I feared I had to argue with them to prove I was who I said I was.

Not to mention that the city was full of guards and imperial agents, at least the zone outside the spaceport, checking the huge crowd of refugees. In the end, the largest part of travelers that weren't professionals or traders did it for one reason: trying to find a better place to live. I had heard about humanitarian disasters, riots on planets that had been overtaxed and the huge flux of immigrants that these taxes caused. People moved to the Outer Rim trying to find work as a miner, people devoted themselves to piracy and there were people who, in order to survive, decided to turn to crime lords. I didn't know what was worst: being a pirate or a smuggler for the Hutts. I didn't eve wanted to think about it. Shit, seven years of Empire had been worse than 10.000 years of Republic.

It was summer but it wasn't that hot. There was a northern wind that was rather strong and it was bringing rain. On the horizon I could see dark clouds gathering and preparing to pour down. I really needed to be quick.

I put my hands in my pockets and kept going on my way, trying to avoid any check point, just in case there were some, and walking as fast as I could. I was sure the Clones weren't the examples of a strong mind and will but there was still the chance they had made them better during the years and mind tricks could not work on them. I couldn't afford a single mistake in that moment. On Coruscant, yes I could. I knew the city, I knew how to mix with the population and disappear in a moment but in Theed? No way. In case they found me, I was busted and I didn't know any other way to get out a nasty situation than slicing some clones up.

And I wanted to avoid that too. What could gather more attention than a squad of troopers sliced up with a lightsaber?

I was worried, I had to admit it to myself. I was very worried and not only for me but for the Naberries. They had a certain influence but the Empire doesn't count stuff like that. Once I got out, if something strange happened on Naboo, Vader wouldn't wait a second more and would go straight to them.

Still I held the hilt of my weapon tight in my pocket. You never know what to expect from life.

And as precise as Obi-Wan's scold when I did something stupid, bad luck struck again! I was less than half an hour from my destination when I turned and saw in a small square ahead of me a squad of troops that checked on the pedestrians.

"Holy crap..." I muttered in Hutt as I walked, hoping they didn't chose me.

That was a big problem in that case. If they picked and checked me, I was busted. I didn't have any ID! Better, I had the ID of a pilot I found on the ship, one of those documents without photos that I had put in my pocket as a precaution but if they checked the code, I was dead. And if they searched me, it was even worse. A lightsaber, even when turned off, is more than a weapon, it's a symbol. And it's impossible for a civilian to have one, even if he found it during the war and kept it as a souvenir. It's that kind of object you keep at home, once you have made them unharmed. You don't carry them as a lucky charm!

Obviously, since I was the only one in the square, they chose me! The higher officer raised his and and waved at me to come closer. I did as ordered and tried to look as calm as I could.

"Can you show us your ID please?" he asked, his voice filtered through the helmet sounded metallic and unfeeling. It wasn't a Fett clone, his voice was a bit too acute, even through the microphone. They had got some new material for their tin soldiers. Damn it!

"Sure." I took the ID card from my pocked and handed it to him.

The clone looked at it carefully, then he looked at me again. "Can you tell us why you are here?"

I shrugged my shoulders trying to look at ease. "Family. My brother broke his leg and he needs some help in his workshop." it was a huge lie but it was everything I could create in that moment.

"In a neighborhood like this?" asked a clone behind the chief. That was a Fett clone, his voice was very recognizable.

"It's the fastest way from the spaceport." I tried to adjust it but I had the bad feeling.

"Any problem?" asked the officer. "His ID is regular!"

"Captain, do you mind if I check a little better?"

"Oh come on! He's harmless!" I held my breath as the two of them bickered about me. I prayed he didn't pass the magnetic card in the reader or I was dead.

"It's just that I feel like I've already seen him, somewhere..." he said.

Fantastic, he was a war veteran.

"I just have a common face. People tell me I look like someone else, it happens all the time."

The clone didn't look convinced, I could feel it through the Force. He still had doubts but he didn't have any authority to do anything. He lowered his gun and they gave my card back and let me go with the best wishes for a good night. I really wanted to kill them all!

I went back to my long walk, sure I was safe now.

Wrong!

Only five minutes later I was walking deeply submerged in my thoughts that I didn't notice that about two hundred yards ahead there was another check-point. When I saw it, it was too late to change path and make it look like I really needed to turn. It was all a matter of luck. Or Force, I'd prefer to say.

With my hands tucked in the pockets of the jacket I had found on the ship, I kept walking, trying looking at ease as with the other check point. I needed all the self control I could muster or at that point I just could start shaking. I was walking slow enough to hear part of their chatting while I got closer. I hoped they would let me go without stopping me. In total, they were four soldiers, three forming the actual check point crew and one in the driver seat of the recognition vehicle behind them.

"Seems like he vanished."

"A prisoner can't just disappear into thin air, come on! He must have found a way to get out of there!"

"He faked a suicide then he got out wearing the uniform of the soldier that brought him his meal. That's how he escaped!"

Finally the news of my escape had reached other planets outside Blenjeel.

"Where do you think he went?"

The others shrugged their shoulders. "Who knows. Probably he's looking for his friends, those we haven't found. There are still quite a few of them out there, you know. But the orders are clear: kill him on sight! End of the discussion." replied the one who seemed to be the chief.

"Damn...with him out, our workload will quadruplicate!" finally they noticed me. "Sir, your entering a weapon-free zone. Stop there."

I can't repeat the sequence of insults, swearing and curses I threw at them in my head. I obeyed and waited for them.

"Can you show us your ID?"

Again I obeyed. They didn't run it through the computer but I wasn't safe yet. "In this zone there's absolute prohibition for civilians to bear weapons. Before we proceed with the search, do you have any weapon to declare?"

I must admit I was scared to death at that point. I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. "No Sir." I lied.

The clone nodded. "Take your hands out of your pockets and raise your arms over your head."

I obeyed and held my hands high while they ran a scan on me, probably a couple of inches away. I hoped it wasn't the kind of scanner sensitive enough to catch the small amount of energy radiation emitted by the battery of a lightsaber. It wasn't a powerful cell, it didn't need too much energy to work, but it was still an energy cell and if I was right, it was that kind of thing that scanner looked for. Obviously, it started shrieking then they passed it over my right pocked. It was the sensitive kind. Another sequence of unrepeatable curses.

"Sir, can you show me the contents of your pocket?" he asked as calm as a stone.

Busted. I had hoped I didn't have to hurt anyone but in that point it was inevitable. Still I could make it look like a shootout.

Slowly, very slowly, I lowered my right hand and put it in my pocket. I gripped the hilt of my weapon and then counted up to three before acting. Faster than anything they had ever seen, I took out the weapon and ignited it. Its plasma blade came to life with a low hiss in front of their masked faces, but I knew they couldn't believe their eyes. Before they could react, I leaped forward and landed behind them, trying to put as much distance between us that I could. I might have had to fight, but I still could control the damages.

They armed their blasters and a shower of red lasers poured on me, some hit the stone wall behind me, some others, more precise, I had to deflect them. Those were aimed straight to my chest!

I managed to deflect all of them, some of them without too much care, others, well, ended up on my assailants. Two in a row finished on the chief, sending him on the ground, I don't know if dead or just unconscious. At that point it didn't matter, I just had to stop them.

I tried to end it as fast as I could but I didn't have enough time to make the blasts bounce where I wanted. They were too many and too fast, even for me. The majority of them hit the armored vehicle behind them, and that's the beginning of my troubles.

One of them changed fire mode. A more powerful blast flew straight towards me, it hit the blade and ended its course on the vehicle, piercing the armor. I don't know what it hit, probably a box of back up weapons or high end explosives, because a moment later the vehicle blew up.

The explosion was deafening. In a split second, the shootout was over, I was sent flying backwards against the wall by the blast wave, my head spinning like mad and a slight buzz in my ears, not to mention the blurred sight typical of head traumas.

Slowly I opened my eyes and saw dust and debris everywhere, the four clones laid on the ground lifeless. Fortunately they were still in once piece or the situation would have been really bad. I was half sitting against the wall, trying to shake away the daze, when I heard someone screaming. Someone living the in the zone was calling the police. I had to run away.

I stiffly stood up, tried to take a step forward but I fell on the ground again, my right side felt like it was on fire.

I turned on my back and looked down. I was bleeding. Badly. The explosion had sent a metallic shrapnel flying around and it hit me like a jagged bullet. It probably broke a couple of ribs. And it hurt. Shit, it hurt like hell! Breathing hurt most of all, and if I didn't move, I was a dead man.

Groaning in pain, I managed to stand up and holding the wound tightly with my hand I started walking as fast as I could. Every step was an agony but I had to move, there was too much traffic around there.

As soon as I was far enough from the crime scene I stopped for a second and tried to catch my breath. My clothes were drenched with blood, that meant I wasn't leaving tracks behind me but it wouldn't work for too long. I could already feel blood slipping down my pants. I pressed a little tighter and kept going. I had to gather every ounce of energy I had left, use the Force to keep me up and standing...I used every trick I knew and it was in that moment that I realized that the Force wasn't healing me anymore. Not to mention that the shrapnel was gritting against my ribs and it was even worse. It wasn't a good sign. At all.

Finally I found the right street. I was almost there. I recognized the porch in front of the house and those two or three steps that led to the front door. A decorated plate confirmed it was the right house. Walking up those three steps was a torture but I managed to drag myself up and rang the doorbell, then leaned on the doorstep. I couldn't breath properly and I saw my sight field getting narrow and narrow by the moment. I was about to lose consciousness.

On the other side of the door I heard fast, light steps approaching and a female voice announce she was going to open up. It was Sola, I could recognize her voice even if we hadn't spoken much.

Suddenly I felt the coppery taste of blood in the back of my throat. That wasn't good.

"Who's there?" she asked before opening.

I took a deep, painful breath before I could speak. "Sola, please don't get mad. Can we talk inside? I need to get in!" I was in such a haste I totally forgot manners.

"Who are you?" her voice betrayed fear. Well, it was comprehensible after all, I hadn't even introduced myself!

"Please..." my voice was broken. "Please, let me in, I can explain everything. We met ten years ago, I was with your sister. That's why I'm here I need to find her!"

"My sister died seven years ago."

"You know it's not true!" I replied. "Sola, I'm begging you, I can't talk from out here. Please, I have to find her! It's about her children and..." I couldn't complete the sentence. The jagged piece of metal in my wound moved and stole my breath.

The door suddenly opened. She had grown older, not too much but it was now clear that she was a lot older than Padmè. By the look on her face, she seemed terrified.

"How do you know about them?"

I turned towards her. I knew I wasn't such a great sight to bear but at that point I had to confess or she would have never opened up.

"Because I'm their father!"


	9. I'm Alive

" _Because I'm their father..."_

Those words hanged in the air for endless seconds while Sola processed what I had just said. I had never been in such a haste to say something and more than a confession, that simple sentence was more a cry for help. I was bleeding to death and I knew I wouldn't be able to stand up for more than a minute. My legs were about to fail me.

She looked up at me, shocked, almost angry at herself because she didn't trust me from the very beginning, still I knew she was trying to recognize me. I had changed so much I doubted she could actually recognize me since the last time we met, ten years before. If I had been here, of course I would not. Not to mention that my face was contorted by pain, that made it even harder to recognize someone.

"Anakin..." she breathed. "Are you..."

I had to brace myself on the door frame with my left hand or I would have fallen. "Sola, please...believe me. Let me in!"

I hadn't though about the blood on my hands and I could see pure terror in her eyes as she noticed my bloody fingers on the frame. "What the..." she opened the door so I could enter. "Get in, quick!"

I would have loved to obey but as I tried to take a step forward my legs failed me and I fell on my knees. "Damn it..." I muttered as I held my bleeding wound trying not to faint. Fortunately I managed to stand up and get in.

"Anakin! You're hurt!" she closed the door then looked back at me. I was barely standing up leaning on the wall but I couldn't hold on anymore and I slid down on the floor. She knelt beside me and moved my hand for a moment. "This is bad. Mom! Dad! Darred! Come here!" she shouted.

"I'm sorry for the mess." I whispered while she helped me lay down on the floor.

"Don't worry about it now. We'll deal with that later." she said reassuringly. I had forgot how her voice resembled Padmè's one. In the haze of the situation, for a moment I though she was right there where her sister was in reality.

"Sola what's going on...by the Gods!" exclaimed Jobal as she arrived. She was the first one to get there. "Anakin what happened to you?"

She recognized me instantly, I don't know how. She joined her daughter beside me and with skillful touch she replaced my hand on the wound, applying more pressure. I was too weak to do it myself. "What happened dear?" she asked, softly.

"An explosion, not a mile away from here..." I managed to say in a breath. It was getting hard to breathe properly, I felt my ribs grinding against one another and it hurt like hell.

"You always manage to get into troubles, don't you?"

In that moment Ruwee and Darred arrived. "What's going on here?" said Ruwee. He was breathing heavily, as if he had been running there.

"Your son-in-law managed to get out of prison, that's it!" replied Jobal sternly. "And he needs help. Go and get Janu, come on!"

"No wait a second...you mean this is Anakin?" he asked a bit upset.

I nodded, weakly. "Yes sir..."

He looked at me, then at his wife and his daughter, and without a single word he opened the door and disappeared in the night.

"Don't worry Anakin. You're going to be fine. Just relax, Ok?"

"I'm trying but it hurts!" I managed to groan.

"There's something stuck, isn't it?" asked Darred as he put his hands on my right leg and kept it down so I couldn't move it. Instantly, it felt a lot better. I nodded.

Suddenly I felt blood coming up from my throat. I had to turn and spit it out or it would have made me cough and probably I would lose consciousness at that point. "This is getting bad..."

"Don't worry Anakin. You'll be fine, just hold on until Janu arrives. He's an incredible surgeon, he'll know what to do with you!" said Jobal. "Besides, you're lucky you got here today. Tomorrow we wouldn't have been here."

"I'm sorry if..." she put her fingers on my lips and shushed me.

"Don't be sorry for anything. You're family!"

"Sola, we can't keep him here." started Darred. "He needs to be comfortable and quiet and the hallway isn't the right place."

"Where can we move him?" asked Jobal then.

"Padmè's room." replied her daughter. "I think we still have some of those waterproof sheets we used when the twins were babies, the one we used in their cribs to protect the mattresses. We can use them to protect the bed."

"Go then, get it ready." said Darred. "Do it fast ok?"

"Consider it done." she stood up and ran upstairs.

"How long will it take for Janu to get here?" asked Darred.

Jobal shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. Ten minutes, maybe a bit more. He's not a teenager anymore, he can't walk that fast."

"I hope he's as good as you always told me because this is really bad." he replied. "He's bleeding out!"

"He's a trauma surgeon, the fact that he delivered both your daughters doesn't make him a worse doctor. He was one of the best during the Clone Wars."

"So I heard..." he mumbled. "Sola! How's it going?" he shouted.

"Bring him up, I'm done here."

"Great." said her husband. "Now Anakin, it's going to hurt. Hold that wound as tightly as you can, I'll try to make it as fast as I can."

"Are you sure it's safe to move him? Wouldn't he lose consciousness from the pain?" asked Jobal then.

"Don't worry!" I breathed. "I can cope with the pain. I lost an arm...don't worry about it!"

"Are you sure?" she asked, quite worried. I nodded in response.

"Alright. Here we go!" he slid his arms under my shoulders and knees and pulled me up.

"What the..." I groaned as he moved. It hurt, and bad. It was almost unbearable, I mean...I was used to physical pain and everything but...shit, it hurt like hell! I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on something else completely, but it was hard.

"We're almost there, hold on Anakin!" I heard Jobal say as she pulled my hair away from my face.

"I'm...trying!"

"Here you go..." he said as he laid me down on the bed. As I lay down straight the pain subsided a bit. Darred was right, I felt a little better. I tried to relax a bit but failed miserably. I had to concentrate on every breath or I could have forgot to breathe.

"Feel better?" he asked.

"Yeah, a bit..."

"Good. Now, I'm going downstairs and wait for the doctor. You stay here with Sola and try to survive, alright?"

"Ok...thanks..."

"You're welcome Anakin. Just don't die as we wait!"

Then he ran downstairs. Only Sola stayed and helped. She had gathered a huge amount of towels on a table near the bed and she used one to stop the bleeding. "Hey, don't you dare to die on me! Padmè would never forgive me!"

"Don't let me go then..." I whispered. "I don't know how long I can hold on!"

Even if my sight was a bit hazed I saw her smile. "No one will let you go. Not until you're in this house. It's not our style."

"That's a good point but..." I took a deep breath and sighed. "I don't know how long I can last!"

"Long enough to see your children have kids themselves. Janu is coming and I swear he's the best surgeon on the planet. He wouldn't be head of our medical squads during the war! And he's been our own doctor since me and Padmè were kids."

"He must be really good then!"

She sat on the edge of the bed and smiled again. "He's the best. His manners are a bit rude but he's the kind of surgeon you would trust your life with. He cured Padmè when the twins were born. Do you mind if I take off these dirty clothes?"

"Not a problem..." It felt a bit awkward but I wasn't in the position for complaining. While still pressing on the wound, she untied the front of my tunic then pulled the belt open and slit the shirt and tunic out of the hem of my pants. "You know, you're lucky, you don't have to take off your pants! The wound is high enough!"

Thank the Force. "That's luck..."

"From a certain point of view it is. It wasn't really in my plans for the future to undress my sister's husband, not even because he's hurt and he needs an emergency surgery!"

"It wasn't in my plans either..."

"I bet your plans relied on the fact that we might know where Padmè is. Unfortunately, we don't."

"Something like that..." there was something I needed to tell her. I didn't know how much time I had left and I needed to do it now. "Sola...can you do me a favor?"

She nodded. "Sure, anything!"

"If I die..." she interrupted me.

"You won't die Anakin, remember that!"

"Please Sola, listen to me!" I said, probably a bit more forcefully than what I intended. "If I die, I want you to give Padmè my wedding ring and my lightsaber. Please...can you do it?"

"Of course I can..." she said softly. "But I won't, because you won't die! Do you understand? You won't die! I thought you were a tough guy!"

I tried to reply but the shrapnel moved under her hands and made me gasp in pain. In the same moment the door downstairs slammed closed. "I got him!"

"Hey, Dad is back. You're going to be fine in a minute, believe me!"

A tall, lean man appeared on the door. "Is he the patient?" he asked with a low, raspy voice.

"Yes. It's him." answered Sola.

"Alright. Let's see what's the matter here!" he grabbed the chair from the table and sat at my side. "Oh, shrapnel wound...were you involved in the explosion I heard about fifteen minutes ago?" he asked taking a pair of latex gloves from his bag.

"Yes..." I replied.

"Alright Kid." he moved the bloody towel and inspected the wound. His face grew worried. "Damn...Ruwee, you should have told me it was that serious!"

"I'm not a doctor, I didn't really know!"

The surgeon shook his head and placed the towel back on the wound. "Sola, please, apply some pressure but don't exaggerate! I don't want that shrapnel to hurt him more." he grabbed his back and took a syringe and a bottle. "I can't sedate you, the risk of a come is too high, but this should make it a little bearable!" he stuck the needle in my left bicep. "It's gonna hurt!"

"It hurts already!" I groaned weakly.

"I know. Anyway...let's get to the hard part. Are you ready?" I nodded. "Good."

"Do you think he can get through this?" asked Jobal from the door.

"He's a Jedi, he can get through everything!" that almost made me burst into laughs. If we could have got through everything, then the Republic would still be in its place. "By the way...what's your name?"

"Anakin..."

"Skywalker? Wow, Ruwee forgot to tell me that! So, you're the Hero of the Republic!" he took some stuff out of his bag then removed the towel. "You know, I've met many people who knew you. Not to mention your wife!"

"Yeah, Sola said something..."

"Did she tell you I was here when your children were born?" he asked as he started working on the wound. I nodded. "Quite a hard day. The reward was incredible but...hell, almost sixteen hours of labor...Padmè was exhausted. It was long, and painful, but everything went just fine, fortunately. Not a single problem. The problem was that Jedi...damn, I can't remember his name!"

"Obi-Wan." interjected Sola.

"Yes, him! He said he was your Master. Anyway, he was so agitated! Damn, he looked like he was the father!"

"He's like a father to me..." I whispered. "That makes him a sort of grandfather to them, from a certain point of view."

"Well said Kid." he looked up at me. "You're a bit pale... I don't like it. I think you need this!" he pulled a plastic sac from his bag. It was one of those full of medicines they usually connect to IV and stuff like that. He took a sterile tube and an IV needle. Quick as only years of experience make you, he stuck the needle in my left arm, then connected the tube to the needle then to the sack. "Sola, please, hold it up and push it." he handed it then went back to his job. "You have a couple of broken ribs, did you spit blood?"

"Yes, a couple of times." replied Sola for me.

"That's not good..." he mumbled more to himself than to the others.

"Hey, if you..." I couldn't speak properly. "If you are trying to say I'm going to die...just stop it there and tell me."

He chuckled. "No Kid, you're not going to die anytime soon...I've already stopped the hemorrhage and I just need to get...this...out!"

He pulled hard and the shrapnel appeared in his forceps. But I didn't feel any pain! That was a tactic to distract me and let him do his job. That man really knew how to do his job!

"You won't die today, my little Jedi patient! Not until you're on my table!" he placed the shrapnel on the nightstand and got back to the wound. "I only need to stitch you up!"

I relaxed and sagged back on the pillow. The drug he gave me numbed the pain still I could feel as he worked.

I let him work and just waited there. I felt strange. The pain had almost disappeared but still...

Suddenly, the pain returned at full force and with it, the taste of blood in my mouth. I tried to speak but the thick liquid filled my mouth. I had to turn and spill it out or I would have drowned.

"What the..." started Sola.

Janu looked up. "Shit. Shit shit shit! The rib punctured the lung! Damn it!" he cursed. "Hang on Anakin! Hang on!"

I tried but I lost consciousness about a minute later. I can't even remember my last coherent thought. I only knew I was almost sure I was going to die.


	10. Ever Dream Of Me?

_It was early morning, a usual, boring, morning on Yavin IV. The sun had just risen, a warm breeze moved the fronds of the trees outside the window...everything was plain and normal. A rogue ray of light appeared filtered through the thick curtains, lighting a portion of the room. A tiny wardrobe, a child-sized desk and chair, and a bed. On the bed, you could discern the figure of a child wrapped in the thin cover, his head tucked underneath his pillow, as he tried to delay the wake up as long as he could._

" _Come on! Don't be this lazy! We have to be quick this morning!" a low, male voice came from outside his bedroom, from the other side of the hallway. "We need to move the last stocks today if we want to leave tomorrow!"_

_The boy didn't move a bit. He seemed immune to any voice, call or noise. He was wide awake, he had been for hours, still he didn't want to leave his small, warm cocoon in which he had found refuge early that morning, when a nightmare had woken him up and he couldn't get to sleep. He stood there, motionless, and waited._

_The man stepped on the door frame and looked inside the room. "Get out of bed right now or I swear your mother will do it!" he tried to sound harsh, but underneath his low voice there was a hint of worry. That kid wasn't much of a morning person but he usually didn't complain too much about early wake ups. Not if that meant they were moving back to Alderaan the next day! Something was wrong._

_A little girl came out of the bathroom just in front of the boy's room. "Call your mother, I think we have a problem with your father." he said softly. She silently looked at her brother then nodded and ran looking for their mother._

_She immediately arrived. "Again?" she asked, already knowing what she was going to face. It wasn't the first time her son behaved like that._

" _Again. Seems like he inherited his father's ability to see things in his dreams. And mess up things since early morning." he smiled for a second, then took a step back. "Come on, let's get breakfast, your mother will deal with him." he said at the little girl. She nodded and the pair walked together down the hallway towards the small kitchen._

_Sighing, the woman walked into her son's bedroom and opened the curtains enough to let the sunshine in the room, then she sat down in the edge of his bed._

" _Luke..." she called softly. "Luke are you awake?"_

_This time e responded, emerging from underneath the pillow. His eyes were bloodshot red and tired. A sign he had been crying for a long time. Still he didn't say a word._

" _Luke, come on, we need to fix the last things then we can get back to Alderaan and we can't do it without you!" she said slowly tracing circles on his back, trying to calm him down. "Don't you want to leave?"_

_He nodded, then he let go of pillow and covers and climbed in his mother's lap, hugging her tightly. Instantly, he knew something bad had happened. He had reacted the same way not to many weeks before, when he had sensed something was wrong with his father, even though there was half a galaxy between them._

" _What happened kid?" she asked again, her voice barely a whisper, as she tried to sooth him, cuddling him as close as she could. "Did you have a nightmare?"_

_He shook his head against her shoulder and sniffled. "It was about dad..."_

_At that point she had the confirm of her fears. He had had another vision of his father. Those vision had haunted the poor kid's dreams for years now, not to mention those of his twin sister Leia, but not as frequently, thank the Force. Luke had developed a strong connection with his absent father since she had told them their story, at least the part she thought was suitable for such young children._

" _You saw him?"_

_He shook his head again. "No, this time if felt strange...it was like I was sharing his vision but everything was blurry!"_

" _What was he doing?" she encouraged him, placing a kiss on his forehead._

" _He's hurt mom!" he whined. "Bad. He was bleeding but he wasn't in his cell anymore. Not even the infirmary of the prison. It was somewhere else but I can't really recognize it! I tried all night to remember a detail but..."_

" _Don't worry Luke! You did your best. What else can you remember?"_

" _There were..." he concentrated for a moment. "Five people with him. And they were NOT..." he put a rather strong stress on not. "...Imperial agents, guards or whatever. They were very worried about his safety. One of them was doing something to him, I think he was curing his wound."_

" _Did you recognize any of them?"_

_He shook his head again. "No, I couldn't see clearly. Everything was blurry and even the sounds weren't clear. Someone was screaming but I really couldn't get anything more about it. I'm sorry mom!"_

" _Don't worry. You did your best. I know it wasn't such a great dream but you know what it means?" he looked up at her and waited for the rest of the sentence. "It means he's out of prison. That he's free! And believe me, if something bad had happened to your dad, you and your sister would know it. Not to mention Obi-Wan. He's alright, don't worry. This could have happened months ago, we can't know this for sure."_

" _I know mom but...what if he's..."_

" _But nothing. He could be outside that door in this very moment, you can't know that for sure. Trust him. He swore he could have done anything in his power to find us. And he will. I never doubted he would one day get out of there, and I won't start doubting he's not more than healthy right now." she said, her voice as resolute as during her days in the Senate. "You're father is just fine. And he wouldn't really like your behavior."_

_This time Luke nodded in approval. "I know."_

_She looked down at him. He had turned seven just a week before and he really reminded her of his father when they had met, twenty years before. He was a tough kid but he missed his father a lot. He and his twin sister had never met him, they knew him only from the tales of their mother and their Jedi master but still they loved him very much, and missed him terribly. As much as she missed her husband. They all tried to hold on the hope he would one day show up alive and well, but every time Luke, or Leia, had a vision of that kind, their fragile world crumbled to pieces and they had to wait sometimes months before they got a new vision of him, hoping the next time they would see him in a better condition than before. She feared those mornings when she found one of her beloved children with reddened eyes and sings of lack of sleep, because he instantly knew something was wrong with Anakin. And her heard suffered incredibly every time it happened._

_Still, she hoped. Even after seven years of distance, she still felt his presence when she woke up in the morning. She knew he was alive and she would hope beyond hope itself to see him again one day or another. There were days though that she felt her trust falter and she almost lost hope completely. Fortunately there was Obi-Wan that helped her, from his detached point of view, he could see the situation a bit more clearly than the others, and his kind words helped her easing the pain away. Or at least keeping it at distance so she could function. She had to, for her children, and for the Rebellion._

" _Come on Luke, you know your father. He's as tough as a rock, it takes more than a wound to knock him down. He always came home to me, even after the worst battles. He'll do it even this time. He just needs time to find us."_

" _I know mom..."_

" _Good. Now, get out of bed and get your breakfast with your sister, we have a long day ahead. If tonight you can't sleep alone, you and your sister can sleep with me. Deal?"_

" _Deal!" he jumped off the bed and ran in the kitchen._

_She sighed as she heard him run down the hallway. That was going to be one of those days. She ran her hands through her long hair and sighed again. She looked up and saw Obi-Wan standing just outside the room._

" _He's out then." he stated._

_She nodded. "Yes. But I don't want to think about the rest of the dream."_

" _He's not dead if it's that you're worried about."_

_She nodded again. "Yeah, I know you would have known it."_

" _Exactly, but above all he promised to be back. And I've never seen Anakin break a single promise. Not in thirteen years we've been fighting together." he said. "Remember, he said he would have married you!"_

_She smiled, wearily. "I know. It's just that..."_

" _Padmè, what Luke has seen, could have happened months ago. You said it yourself! Don't worry too much about it. Luke is only a child, he can't control the Force yet. And that's the kind of vision that usually tends to deceive. I know he's trying to find you. Don't worry about it."_

_She was about to reply when they heard a scream from the kitchen of their tiny private apartment in the Yavin Rebel base. "Mom!" shouted Leia. "Luke is doing that again!"_

_Padmè sighed. "Here comes Super-Mom!" she muttered. "I'm coming Leia!"_

I don't know what woke me up. And it took me probably hours since I regained a certain level of consciousness of my surroundings to open my eyes. It seemed like my own eyes had decided to take a vacation and refused to obey me, I couldn't open them. All I could do was listening. The sounds came a bit muffled but I could hear quite distinctly the typical sounds of a normal house at early morning. Someone was working in the kitchen, downstairs. From the open window arrived the classic sounds of a garden. Birds chirping, the wind rustling through the trees.

I was definitely alive. Weak, but alive. I took a deep breath and felt the skin of my right side itch like hell. I wondered how long I had been sleeping. Finally I managed to crack my lids open and take a look around. I was still in Padmè's room, but the sheets were clean. I tried to move my arms. The right one worked, but I had an IV needle stuck in the left one and it hurt a little.

I was shirtless but my lower chest and abdomen was tightly bandaged. I lifted the light bed sheet and inspected the bandage. The medication was clean, there was no blood. Good. Still I didn't want to try it and I didn't move from where I was.

All I could do was wait there. And think about that dream. That was a heck of a great dream, believe me! For the first time I saw my kids, even though they were not in the best shape, and I had the confirm they were fine and growing up, that Obi-Wan had kept his promise to protect them. Too bad the circumstances were not the best. I felt really sorry for Luke and the pain those visions caused him, and Padmè. I had never thought about the fact that my particular ability to have very clear visions while sleeping could pass to my children. And, seriously, it was the last thing I wanted them to inherit with my DNA. It was bad enough for me, guess how stressful might be for a kid.

Still, that dream was a sort of blessing for me. It gave me the certainty that my sacrifice was worth it. Every second of prison was totally worth it. They were fine, growing strong with the Force and from a certain point of view they had a solid family, a mother that backed them and encouraged them with everything she could and a Master that could match no other in fact of teachings. I couldn't have hoped for anything better for them. Now I just needed to find them, and I knew it would be a long way to run. But I had to.

At some point, I fell asleep again, but not for long, because I heard Sola just outside of the room.

"Has anyone checked on Anakin this morning?" she asked.

No one responded, or at least I couldn't hear the answer. When I woke up, probably not an hour earlier, I was alone in the room, which meant I was stable enough to be left alone. I was just sleeping.

Anyway, a second later she opened the door and peeked in. I managed to open my eyes even if I was still a bit drowsy and look up at hear, a dumb and tired smile on my face.

"By the...you're awake!" she almost yelled. She entered and sat beside me. "How do you feel?"

I tried to speak but everything that came was a weird, gurgling sound. I was as thirsty as hell. I concentrated a bit more. "I'm thirsty..." I whispered.

She nodded. "Wait here..." she disappeared downstairs and returned not thirty seconds later with a bottle of water and a glass. And a straw. I wasn't capable of using utensils normally yet. Soon after her, Jobal came in, a wide smile on her face.

"By the Gods Anakin..." she said softly sitting beside be. "It's so good to see you awake."

Her daughter poured abundant water in the glass and I gladly took it from her hand. Yep, thank the Force she was so sensible to bring the straw. I drank probably half of it. "It's good to be awake..." I whispered then, my voice was still raspy but at least my throat didn't feel like I had been in the Jundland Wastes for a week!

"We thought you were going to die! In the end you revealed to be stronger than anyone thought."

"What happened?" I asked.

They exchanged a thoughtful, worried gaze. "What's the last thing you remember?" asked Sola.

"Janu screaming and a lot of blood coming from I don't know where in my mouth." I replied before taking another long sip of water.

"Well, the explosion broke a couple of ribs. One of them punctured your right lung and you lost consciousness. He repaired the wound then stitched you up but you needed a blood transfusion. You were lucky enough we have three family members with the same blood type as yours so he had plenty of choice. Troubles started next day, when you developed a rather aggressive blood infection. You had really high fever and you woke up a couple of times but you were delirious for the fever and dehydratation so Janu kept you sedated until he though you had gone through it. He's keeping you under strong antibiotics and lots of liquids, but now you should be alright. You just need to rest." she explained. "He's coming this afternoon to check on you, but by the look on your face, you look incredibly good for what you've gone through a week ago."

"Do you think he will take this thing off?" I asked pointing at the IV. "I hate needles."

"It's up to him. If he believes you will be better with it, I'm sorry kid but you will keep it." said Jobal motherly. She was acting more like a my mother than a relative. And considering that they barely knew me, it was a miracle they had accepted to help me.

"Do you need something?" asked Sola then.

"I'm starving!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter written when I was 15 and edited when I was nearly 22... now the fun part begins!


	11. I'll Find You Somewhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, this is where the fun part begins. From now on, all the chapters were written between August 2010 and March 2011. No more 16 years old high school student just trying. This is the real deal. This is where I took it seriously. Took me some time, but I did it.

Believe me when I say that I'm a horrible patient. I totally suck at being calm and stay in bed. I've always had, since I was a kid. And now that I was all grown up and finally I had regained my freedom, well, I just couldn't stand being confined in bed, even if it was for my safety and my health.

Jobal, Ruwee and Sola took great care of me since the first moment they realized who I was and that I meant no threat. They fed me, and I have to say sometimes I thought they had overfed me because I started gaining more and more weight as days passed. They clothed me and gave me some space to live in for a short time at least. I guess that if I had wanted to stay more, they would have kept me with them, but I had more important things to do than reconnect with my parents-in-law.

After six days of confinement, Janu allowed me to take small walks until I felt strong enough to stay up all day, with the obvious attentions. Since he couldn't use the usual high-tech treatment made of tissue regenerators and other stuff, my recovery was considerably slower that what I was used to. After six years of deprivations and torture, my body just took its time to heal. And I grew more and more impatient by the moment. That dream I had that morning I woke up gave me hope to find my family and my mentor, it gave me the certainty that they were alive and well, and boosted up my will to go and search for them as soon as possible. I was impossible to deal with.

During my convalescence I had the chance to catch up with the events that occurred during my time in prison. And it wasn't something you want to hear after you spent more than ten years to avoid what happened under your nose. There were some that still opposed to the Empire, but Palpatine used the Durasteel grip on them, wiping them away with a simple call to the nearest Star Destroyer. Or simply sending his damn apprentice to do the dirty job.

One night, after dinner, I was sitting outside, in the garden behind the Naberrie house, thinking. I don't remember about what, but, I was lost deep in my thoughts that I didn't notice Jobal coming from the kitchen. She sat down beside me and I jumped a bit, causing my injured ribs to rub together and a jolt of pain shot through me. I grimaced.

"Are you alright?" she asked, calm as ever.

"Yes, just a sharp movement, nothing to worry about." I tried to smile, but I wasn't that convincing. Even after a week, the wound caused me a lot of trouble. I had issues even concerning the stairs! Every time I moved my right leg I was in pain.

"But you are worried about something, aren't you?" she asked then, taking my hand in hers. I wish I could have felt her warmth, but my bionic arm couldn't give me that sensation.

I sighed, and looked up at the darkening sky. "They could be anywhere. And the more I stay here, the more the distant I get from them. I can't even stand the thought that they could be captured right now in this moment. They could be dead now!"

I was on the verge of tears. I get so emotional when it comes to Padmè and my kids!

She smiled, warmly. "Don't worry Anakin. They aren't dead. You would feel that, wouldn't you?" there was no need to answer that question. "They are alright. Right now, I know that they are thinking of you. Last time I managed to talk to my daughter she said that Luke and Leia always asked about their father, and that she was filling them in with all your wonderful deeds you made in the past. They know you are looking for them, don't worry. That dream confirmed that!"

I nodded, still pensive. "I just wished I could see them. Even for a moment. Then I could disappear again and leave them alone and save with Obi-Wan."

"Padmè would never allow you to leave again. Not even if her life would depend of that. And to be honest, there is a way to see them. It's just an old holo, but I guess that in your situation, it should be enough!"

suddenly a spark of hope lit me up. "I thought you didn't have anything of them, in case the Empire got to know that they were alive and that the funeral was all a set-up!"

She shook her head. "No, we have something, but it's really old, the newer we have it's from two years ago, the last time we saw them here." she stood up "Come with me, I'll show you."

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, I stood up from the bench and with uncertain steps I followed her inside the house, grimacing at almost every step I took. Arriving into Ruwee's studio took almost five minutes, while in normal condition it would have taken ten seconds. I felt like a wreck!

Jobal looked into a closet behind her husband's desk and took a small datapad in her hands. "Here, Anakin. It's the only copy we take of the holophotos we took since they were born. It's everything we have, I swear. It's not much, but I guess that in your situation, it's more than enough." she gently placed the pad in my hands. "Come on, use it!"

I swallowed hard. It was a simple action, turning the pad on and scroll through the holopictures contained in its memory, but to me, well, it was like walking on Hoth wearing clothes that were useful on Tatooine! It was incredibly hard, most of all because I knew since my mother-in-law said that they had pictures that once I would have seen them I would have cried like a baby.

I took a deep breath and turned it on with a flick of my mechanical finger. And I started to cry in the same moment.

The first holo showed Padmè and Sola in the garden watching as two todlers crawled around the grass. One of the babies had blonde spiky hair and the other had the same shade of her mother. The first tear slipped down my face.

"This was when they were about seven months old. Master Kenobi took it. He cares about your children as if they were his own. He swore he would protect them at all costs!"

I nodded, too emotional to answer, and scrolled to another holo. This one showed Padmè and the twins as they tried to eat on their own, their tiny faces stained with what looked like mashed apples, a happy smile on both their faces as their mother shook her head, smiling herself. I had lost all of this. Their first steps, their first words. Gone. Past. I had lost all my children life to that moment. That was just so unfair!

By the end of the ten holos, I was crying like a baby. Like the day my mother died. But this time I was an adult, and all I could think about was the unfairness of all that had happened in our life. My slavery, our secret marriage, the rise of the Empire, my imprisonment and their state of clandestine. Not to mention the risk of me turning to the Dark Side of the Force obviously. The last few days had made me quite emotive, probably because I was circled by memories of my beloved Padmè that I just couldn't stand it.

I turned off the datapad and returned it to Jobal's hand. "Thank you Mrs. Naberrie. Thank you." was all I could muster without breaking up like a spineless teen.

She chuckled, rather soundly. "If you need to cry, Anakin, just do it. No one is going to judge you." she circled my shoulders with her arm and hugged me motherly. "I know it is unfair. And believe me, when Padmè first told us the whole story, about your marriage and you giving up on her to allow her to run away and save her life from that treacherous bastard well, my first thought went to you. At least we had the chance to see them from time to time, but you, closed up on some forgotten planet in a Imperial Prison? I still wonder how you managed to survive this long!"

"I just clung to her. Her bare thought, the image I could make up in my mind. If I hadn't so many wonderful memories of her, I would have lost my mind long ago." I managed to smile at the thought. My love for Padmè was the leverage Palpatine was using to turn me, and it was the same thing that saved me from being the new Sith of the universe. That was strange!

"You're strong Anakin. I knew it from the very moment I met you, so many years ago. But now you have all the rights to feel weak and powerless. Because you're only one and there's a trillion of clones out there, not to mention the Emperor and this Darth Vader! Now you're safe. And Ruwee is taking contact with some former senators to get you in the Alliance."

"That's just too kind of you. I don't deserve this!"

"You do Anakin! My daughter would probably kick our ass if we would have turned on you! Now kid, it's time for you to trust us and rest while you're here. Take good care of you, or that wound will never heal! And my daughter would kick our ass if you don't depart from Naboo as good as six years ago. Clear?" I missed that tone. The scalding tone of a mother telling you what to do and what not to do, even if you were 29 years old. Padmè's tone, her very way to mock me when we were together and I told her about my reckless actions in the Outer Rim, during the Clone war.

"Cristal!"

"Good. Now, my Hero-with-no-fear, it's time for you to go back upstairs and sleep. You need it! Tomorrow, if you're up to it, we're going to get you some new clothes. You can't keep using Darred clothes, they don't fit you!"

Later that night, I was about to fall asleep when I felt a strange wave of happiness through the Force, the very same wave I felt the day my children were born.  _I'll find you, anywhere you are._ Was my last coherent thought before falling in a deep, dreamless sleep.

 


	12. Family Snapshot

True to his word, Ruwee managed to get in contact with someone from the newly formed Rebel Alliance, the only official and organized group of opposition to the Empire. Obviously they were a clandestine group and of course getting in contact with them wasn't the easier thing to do, but since Padmè was one of the foundng members well, for her father it was a child's game. Or so I thought.

Only a couple of months later I discovered that Ruwee had to bribe one of the few Rebels on Naboo to get in contact with this emissary, apparently a former republican guard that deserted the Empire call and changed sides. Well, apparently he was due to come to Naboo in ten days, so I would have to wait.

Janu came and checked on me a couple of times, giving me the permission to do mild physical activity to try and rebuild my shape as it was seven years before. He told me that I would have to work hard but, after all, I had already worked really hard not to go crazy in that cell, physical recuperation wasn't as scary as the Dark Side.

I would change my mind in a couple of weeks. I assure you.

Since the wound still hurt and gave me mobility issues, all I could do in those first days of "freedom" was meditating and levitating stuff. All of sudden, my Jedi routine kicked in at full speed and I found myself awake in first ours of the day, usually way before dawn, in the garden of my parents-in-law levitating things up and down, or simply sitting on the grass, feeling the Force flow in that place, as if it was telling me a story. One morning I woke up, got dressed and headed downstairs and sat on the wet grass. It was early morning, everyone was still in his bed, the city wasn't as noisy as usual during the day. I just sat there and took in the Force, clearing my mind of everything that could ruin that perfect morning.

Easier said than done.

I had decided to start some of the advanced levitating exercises that morning, so I did. One of the hardest was standing upside down holding yourself up using only two fingers and the Force. Padawans started doing this exercise daily when they were 14. I started when I was eleven. All on my own. I saw one of the older Padawans doing it at the Temple and decided to try. After a couple of bad bumps on my head and a some bruises I managed to stay this way for some minutes. Then for half an hour. Then for a complete hour and so one until I could keep the position for two hours and more while reciting the whole book of the Jedi Code by heart. And helping other kids standing up. It was one of my favorite exercises because it kept body and mind occupied, yet you had to feel the Force, or a ruinous fall was to be expected.

Well, that morning I found out that I was still able to hold on for quite some time, but as the sun rose I found it harder and harder to stay concentrated enough with the chirping of the birds all around me. It was a strange sound to me after so many years!

No actually it wasn't the chirping that bothered me, all excuses! It was actually the strange feeling of being observed that made me unstable and trembling. And it was close!

"How do you do that?"

Ryoo's voice snapped me out of my state of concentration and I ruined on the lawn like a rookie. I will save the long sequence of curses I muttered once I hit the ground. I sat up holding my side and grimacing.

"How I do that?" I asked looking at my niece "Years of practice. And a little help from the Force."

"I've always wondered what is this Force everyone talks about." she said stepping onto the grass.

"Well, it's like...listen Ryoo, trying to explain what the Force is can be quite a challenge, but I can tell you what Master Qui Gon told me years ago: the Force is everything. Is the link that binds us all. People, plants, animal, everything!" I tried. But for an eleven years old girl it was a different concept to understand.

"You're right it's challenging. I don't understand!" she sat down in front of me, legs crossed and elbows propped on her knees. Straight to the point that girl! I liked it.

"Alright. Give me your hand." She promptly did and I held her tiny hand in mine. "Now close your eyes and relax." Once I knew she was really relaxed I sent a tiny spark from me to her, just enough to make her jump a little but not enough to hurt her. It wasn't different from the usual Force Push, but this tingled more than pushed.

"Wow! Is that the feeling?" she asked smiling wide.

"Well, that was the feeling because I wanted it to feel like tickling, but I can push you," and I pushed a bit on her shoulder "I can move you, make you sleep...I can do many things because I was taught to do them. You know, many people live a whole life not even knowing the Force exists, but I assure you, it is real. It might be difficult to understand since you cannot really see it, but you can feel it anytime you want." I told her. The practical explanation worked marvelous on her.

"Can I?" that girl was as inquisitive as her mother, and aunt!

"Well, with the right training and exercises, Master Yoda thought anyone could at least feel the Force." I grabbed a small rock from the ground and levitated it, sending it spinning around mid air.

"Can you teach me?"

I dropped the rock. "Right now?"

She gave me a shrug. "When you have time!"

"Oh well I'm waiting for this contact from the Alliance I have all the time you want but the fact is that I never taught anyone from scratch like you. I had a Padawan even if it was only temporary, but she was already trained in the ways of the Force, but maybe I can tell you a secret."

"What secret? And what the heck is a Padawhatever?"

She made me laugh. That word caused many communication problems. "A Padawan is a young Jedi in training. First the children are thought in big classes with one Master to survey simple exercises like saber training, but when one grows up and there's a Knight that's willing to instruct him alone, he becomes a Padawan. Basically, a Padawan is a student with a personal teacher."

She nodded and I continued. "By the way, the secret stands in  _not_  trying. If you try to move a rock, it won't move. If you start knowing that you can move the rock, well, the trick is done. I don't need to try to walk, I just know I can to it. With the Force, is pretty much the same. The knowledge that you can feel it makes you feel it. With time and exercises you'll grow more and more confident in it and you'll feel like you can move it, not just know that with time you can do it."

"It seems pretty difficult."

"Don't say it, or you'll never make it. Just close your eyes and relax. And remember, don't try."

It took her some minutes to reach the necessary calm, but it was not long after that moment that her I felt a change in the Force. And I guess he felt it too, because she opened her eyes all of sudden with a strange look in her eyes. "What was that?" she asked.

"That, Ryoo, was the Force. You felt something change, didn't you?"

She shook her head. "No, it felt more like a breath of wind, but it was not in the garden. It was more in my head."

I had a Force sensitive niece and no one had ever noticed it. Fantastic!

"Wow. Impressive! That's the kind of feeling you get when you are a lot more trained than you! Are you sure that Master Obi-Wan didn't teach you anything?" that girl was becoming a mystery to me. I had never had the chance to know her as much as I wanted since the secrecy of our marriage, but in those days she and her sister Pooja were always running up and down near me, asking me if I was ok and taking care of me when I was still bed bound.

"Does that mean anything?"

"That if this would have happened before the Empire, you'd be on your way to become a Jedi. If your mother would let me take you to Coruscant."

"And I doubt I would have!" interrupted Sola coming out in the garden herself.

"Why mom?" asked Ryoo.

"Because I can't stand the thought of you being out there in the battlefield. That's all. Your aunt's decision to become a senator was hard enough to accept, I don't think I could have let you become a Jedi." she revealed. "By the way Anakin the man from the Alliance has arrived?"

I gingerly stood up. "Already?"

"Yes, he's in the living room. Mom and Dad are talking to him now."

"Alright, I'll go. We'll resume this conversation later Ryoo, I have many things to tell you before I'm gone."

"Thanks Uncle Anakin."

The "uncle" think struck me like a lightening bolt. It was the first time she called me uncle, as if finally she had come to count me as an actual member of the family, not just someone that was part of her aunt's life.

As I approached the living room, I felt a strange movement in the Force, like a small whirlwind, coming from that particular room. As soon as I stepped in I discovered why the Force was so agitated.

Standing in a dark robe under a flight outfit, there was a 27 years old man with spiky black air and long beard. A man I had met long before that moment.

"Seems like our stubborn Skywalker is still alive!" he said in his baritone voice, a bright smile on his face.

"Darrick?"


	13. A Friend In Need

**Chapter 13 – A Friend In Need**

"Darrick?"

Darrick Kohr, along with his sister Alehan, was one of my friends during my training. He was already there when I joined them and I was a sort of intrusion in their routine. They were already trained in the basics of the Force and I was only a kid without experience. Let's make it short: they hated me.

I was an element of distress and many times I was stranded by the others and when I started showing some peculiar characteristics that made me more proficient than them well, this condition got only worse. Master Yoda often told the other children not to give into envy and to concentrate into getting better than me, but many of them still couldn't stand me.

Not Darrick and his sister. We caught up together almost instantly, we were sparring partners for some years while we were both at the Temple at the same time. Basically, we grew up together. And now he was here.

"In person! It's good to see you again Anakin!" he hugged me tightly, with a sound pat on my back.

"Same here. I thought you were dead! You were at the Temple when...well, you know when."

"Actually I wasn't at the Temple. I should have been though. I was rescuing my Padawan. She, well, she fell by the hand of the Clones. Unfortunately, I didn't reach her in time."

"I'm sorry to hear that Darrick."

"Well, it was hard. After I saw the Clones do what they did and what happened next I went into hiding and flew from Coruscant to the Outer Rim. There I got in touch with the few other Jedi that managed to get refuge with other people on the run. And then I got caught in the Alliance. Now I'm in charge of evaluating the rookies. But you don't need evaluation. Sith you're Anakin Skywalker! You don't need any recommendation!"

"Darrick, from what I know, the rebellion needs to be protected. From what you know, I could be a Sith in disguise!" I joked as I sat down on the couch in front of him. The wound hurt a bit, but nothing like a week before.

"Don't you dare to turn on me! I've had enough when I discovered that Darth Vader is, better, was Aster."

"Don't tell me! Palpatine was working his methods even on me! When I found out his intention I just wanted to kill him!" I admitted. Fortunately I decided to obey Master Windu.

"And now you'd be dead. Anakin, you did the right thing. Even if it cost you a lot." he leaned forward "By the way let's get to business. The Alliance needs men. Capable men. By now we are only a couple of thousand of people that offer their abilities to the cause. Just that. Some minor skirmishes on lonely planets in the Outer Rim, but nothing more. They don't even suspect it will become a greater movement in the future as we all hope. We're trying to organize a full scale offensive, but we don't have enough men right now."

"How about infiltrating in what remains of the Senate?" asked Ruwee, as if he had read in my mind.

"We already have more than a few Senators that are still active. Mon Mothma, Bail Organa and some others. They where those who actually formed the Alliance, did you know that?"

"Yes, my family here filled me in." I said, waving at the Naberrie.

"And how do the know?" Darrick was a bit suspicious.

"Our daughter, Padmè was one of the founding members." said Jobal.

"Oh, yeah, sorry I forgot I was called with her name as a reference. Excuse me again but you're never cautious enough." he stopped for a moment then took out a datapad from his robe "Now, with your reputation and your contacts well, I'm sure you're gonna get to a high rank in a month or two."

"I don't care about ranks I was already a General during the war, now I'm just a soldier. I can do whatever you want me to do. I'll do it."

"Listen, Anakin, right now there isn't so much action. We have a place though on a moon of Onderon, in the Outer Rim. We are gathering ships, droids, fighters, whatever we can get our hands on and are worth the repair costs. You're a magician with a laser cutter and actuators. That's the best I can do now. I'll keep and eye open if Senator Organa decides it's time for a real army and if we need an instructor."

It wasn't much, but it was enough. At least I could be useful. But I needed to know more.

"What about Senator Amidala." I blurted out almost without thinking.

"What about her?"

"Where is she?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. I never met her in person, Master Kenobi keeps an eye on her and her children, he trains them, but we don't know anything else. She's kept under tight protection and surveillance, probably because she was the Senator that kept opposing to Palpatine 'till the end, even if she was the one that shoot him to the rank of Supreme Chancellor."

"In the end she opposed him because she felt she made a huge mistake when she proposed him for the rank. Chancellor Valorum was a weak politician, but at least didn't have an Empire in his head." Ruwee interrupted him. "Palpatine was subtle, his mind was all focused on becoming a totalitarian ruler. And she unconsciously helped him. That's why she opposed him in the end."

"It's logical after all. But why such an interest in a Senator?" he asked then, partially uncovering my secret.

I wanted to tell him the truth, but even after so many years I knew that hiding our marriage was the best thing to do to assure that she would be protected. Darrick was one of my best friends, but I couldn't afford the chance that he could spill the news somehow. I was about to spill it myself to him right there, but I decided not to. He deserved honesty, but there and then was just the wrong time.

"Nothing. We were just good friends, since the beginning of the war." I lied.

"Yeah, like you're asking me because you were friends." I had forgot about his keen awareness when it came to detect lies. And I wasn't such a good liar in the end. "Spill it Skywalker."

I glanced around me and sighed. "I think we need to discuss this in private, just you and me."

There were bits of our story that weren't actually the best for her parents to hear.

"Use my study. And take your time." interjected Ruwee and guided the rest of the family towards the kitchen.

"Come now, we have a lot to talk about, even more than what we have done!" I stood up gingerly and headed to my father-in-law's private study. I made him sit on one of the armchair and I just leaned on the desk. Sitting down and standing up again would have been too much after that ruinous fall of half an hour before.

"So, Skywalker?" he leaned back and crossed his arms "What the hell are you hiding?"

"Listen Darrick, if you want to hate me after this, do it. The fact is that me and Senator Amidala are indeed good friends, but...well, we're even more than that."

"I gathered that." he nodded "But there's more am I right?"

Suddenly I felt a huge weight on my neck and sighed. "We married, almost ten years ago."

He remained silent for a moment. "And I guess that you're the father of her children."

Plain and simple, no hint of disgust in his voice like I had thought. Almost an empathic tone.

I nodded, not daring to speak. Suddenly I realized I had been clutching my bionic arm all the time since I had sat down at started talking about the Alliance with him and the muscles at the joint with the neural pad were aching. I tried to relax but all the calm I had found that morning while teaching Ryoo the basics of the Force was gone now, replaced by a feeling of anxiety I wasn't familiar with and it was making me uncomfortable.

"Alright. Congratulations Anakin! Unfortunately I can't help you. I don't really know where they are."

"Just get me in. Give me orders. Five me an engine of an old starfighter and I'll be happy. Anything just to be a pain in the ass of the Emperor. Even a minor sting!"

"I told you! As soon as you're ready to move and not limping like a crippled man head to Onderon and find a transportation for the Dxun moon! It's a jungle with an old Mandalorian settlement. We use it as a stocking area!" he threw me the datapad he'd been fumbling with as we talked. "There's the required coordinates and map of the area. Just head there and tell me that Master Kohr sent you. Give me a nickname, a covert identity and I'll provide you a new ID document. I'll send them here next week alright?" he explained.

"Alright. By the way, I won't be able to walk straight just in a week!" I laughed.

"But what the heck happened?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "A skirmish with the Empire. A gas tank exploded and a shrapnel hit me. Pretty bad."

"Always the smart one. One day Anakin, this behavior will lead you to a painful death! Listen, I'm sorry I can't help you finding your family but I'm just a recruiter. And it's hard work, let me tell you. If it were for me, I would already be out there slicing my way through the troopers, but we can't afford that now. My sister Alehan is trying to find any Force Sensitive child in the galaxy to start rebuilding the Order" Instantly I thought about Ryoo and what Sola had told me about letting her join the ranks of the Jedi. Thank the Force no one noticed she was Force sensitive. " We are a helpless organization with huge dreams and even bigger stakes. We have all to lose and not to much to hold on to. It's a crappy life Anakin, are you sure you want to join us?" he asked me.

I took a deep breath. "Are you sure you can afford not to have me in your ranks?" I asked then.

He sighed. "No, we can't. We need your saber. And we need your ability with war ships. And your ability as a tinker. Basically we need you, and you need us if you want to do something."

"Guess it's sealed then. We need each other, and if my identity remains hidden, we can all work together and get all the benefits. I can't afford the risk to reveal myself and have them killed, not after what I went through to save them. To save you all. I don't pretend to get to find them tomorrow."

"Well, now I guess I have to go. I promise I'll try to find you a better employment for you with time, but for now, we can't really do anything more than repair and possibly try to design a couple of starfighters for the future." he said standing up.

"Thank you Darrick. It's even more than what I could hope."

"Don't thanks me yet." he said hugging me again. I hugged him myself. "Do it when you get to Dxun and I'll bring more news. I'll try to get in touch with Senator Organa, he's the easiest to reach."

"You're doing far too much for me right now, considering the bad reputation I gathered during these years. I just hope someone will realize that the Empire is responsible for all of this, not the Jedi."

"I'm in the same situation. Each time I move, I fear someone from the war could recognize me and blow my covert. Now, create a blaster proof covert and try to hide as best as you can because your face was even more publicized than mine back in the days."

I walked him to the door. "I'll try. Make the IDs ready for Atton Rosh. I guess it will do."

"Atton like former killer that helped the Exile Jedi after the Mandalorian War?" he asked. He was a keen historian, he knew pretty much everything about history of the Jedi, even the Dark Times.

"Yep. Like that."

"Deal. You're in Anakin. Or I'll better say Atton."

"Thanks again Master Kohr. It was a pleasure to meet you again." I said as I opened the front door.

"No problem Atton. Be on that moon as soon as you're ok and the galaxy will thank you." then he walked down the garden towards the street. I would have saw him only a couple of months after that day.

I looked down at the datapad in my hand. I was in. I had just joined the organization soon to be really called Rebel Alliance. One step closer to my final mission.

Getting my family back together again.


	14. Leaving Through The Window

It took me two more weeks to be completely functional again. During that time I kept up my exercise routine every day quickly gaining enough control of the Force to be considered again a Jedi. At least that side of my training went well.

On the physical side there were more odds. Seven years of prison had taken their toll on me and if my mind had got only stronger, my body got weaker and weaker as day went by. Down there, in that humid cell I was unable to stay fit and now I had to recuperate. The wound didn't speed up the process. Even the easiest exercise was painful or awkward for me, at least in the first few days. I tried to ignore the pain and discomfort but it was easier said than done. One day, about three days before I took off for Onderon, I asked Janu when my body would be ready again for a full physical training and I didn't really like what he said.

"Well boy, you had a tough time in these years, you need to slow down if you want to be yourself again."

Nothing I didn't already know.

"I know that, I just want to know when I can start to train myself like seven years ago!" I was getting impatient and he wasn't helping. I've always been an impatient person and after so many years of waiting for the right occasion things were a bit too slow for my taste.

"Give yourself a few more weeks. Get some rest, use this time to do some research if you want to find Padmè and your children. The morning you wake up without that stinging feeling then you can start training as you wish." he said packing his things.

More weeks. Damn, it was taking really too long. With the technology of the Jedi Medical Department I could have been back up to fight in two days. It was taking months to heal completely. Not to mention these few weeks more he was talking about. It sucked hard. I felt helpless and angry. Really angry.

But it wasn't the best moment to be angry. Three days before that encounter, Darrick's package with my new ID had arrived. He put up a back story for Atton Rosh that resembled mine minus the knighthood and obviously my imprisonment, but it could hold on, at least I hoped so.

Atton Rosh was an engineer who worked for the Jedi. He was a starfigher designer and builder, not to mention a mechanic. During the war he lost his right arm in a working accident back on Coruscant when he was trying to put back together a malfunctioning machine and it crashed on him, crippling his arm and leaving the scar beside his eye. Since he worked for the Jedi, they gave him the best bionic arm they could provide and that small particular of myself was explained. Obviously Darrick created a file correspondent to the number of my ID, just in case some trooper wanted to make a more accurate research about me. Nothing that a mind trick couldn't resolve, but after all it was better be prepared.

My transformation in Atton Rosh still had to be completed. I let my beard grow, keeping it trimmed just like Obi-Wan did in the beginning of the Clone Wars, knowing that it was one of the best ways to change appearance quickly. One could be spotted and described in a way then shave and change look, being unrecognizable. Anakin Skywalker was a well-known face around the galaxy, mostly on the system I had operated in, and I wanted Atton to look normal. As normal as I could with all my well visible scars.

Ruwee managed to buy an old and cheap ship I could use as transport. It was old and had many problems, the hyperdrive needed a recalibration but after a couple of days working on it I managed to make it work. It was nice to have something to do again, tinkering was one of the few things I could do really well. That, being a Jedi and getting angry. I guess somehow my anger at Palpatine saved me, even if Master Yoda always told me that anger lead to the Dark Side. I was one step away from crossing the line, but I was too angry at the Chancellor for betraying my trust to allow his nonsense speaking to affect me. Apparently, Aster wasn't lucky enough. By the way, after some work the ship was working, flying and would hold together until I reached Dxun, one of the biggest moons of Onderon.

Ruwee told me to avoid any stop on the planet. Its most importa spaceport, Iziz, was a cradle of the worst smugglers, outlaws and bounty hunters of the quadrant. It was fairly dangerous for a planet in the Inner Rim and a bad place to go if someone wanted to hide. The Empire didn't bother to check the moons like Dxun, its jungle was considered to be impossible to live in and too dangerous, but the Rebels had found that old Mandalorian base and used it as a castle. Or so Darrick said!

But I was worried nonetheless. I feared the Empire would discover that I remained here on Naboo so long and would go looking for the Naberries, obviously killing them for helping a fugitive. A former Jedi accused of murder and betrayal fugitive. There was a huge bounty on my head. One evening Darred had come home from work, a few days before Janu cleared me for long space travel, saying that there was a 50,000 Imperial credits bounty on my head. Dead or alive. My position wasn't of the easiest.

I was so engrossed in my thoughts that I didn't listen to Janu, at the point that he smacked me behind my head. "Hey kid, you might be a Jedi, but you need to take care of yourself! And start listening to what the doctor says!" he stated with a slight derision tone.

"I'm sorry I was...thinking." I tried to justify myself.

The elderly man sat in front of me. "About what?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "A lot of things. I have to leave Naboo as soon as possible, I was thinking about Dxun."

"Awful place. Wet, it rains all the time. Full of terrible beasts and a thousand years old warehouse littered with traps from the Great Jedi War. Be careful when you go down there."

"How do you know these things?" I asked, wondering where did he get so many information about a place I didn't even know it was inhabitable since a couple of weeks before."

"I read a lot. An my father was a geologist. He traveled a lot, even on Dxun, and my mother and my siblings traveled with him. Easy." he stated "Listen, I was thinking about your arm."

"Which one? The sane or the mechanic one?"

"The mechanic. When I visited you the first time I noticed a slight inflammation to the tissues near the neural pad. Have you ever been checked up about that?"

I shook my head. "No, it started when I was in prison. They didn't really care about my health back there."

"They left you with some bad scars. I've never seen something like your back. By the way, would you mind if I check the neural pad?"

"Absolutely not, be my guest!"

Neural pads check up on prosthetic limbs is a gruesome thing. It implies removing the limb and connect the pad to a computer to download a mountain of data about the condition of the stub. Bones, tendons, blood vessels and muscles are constantly kept under control. It felt strange to remove my arm after so many years. The last check up I had was months before I left for the Outer Rim Sieges. Almost eight years before!

"Mmh..." I heard him "I don't like this." he stated looking at the computer screen after the data had been downloaded from my arm.

"What?"

"You have a high count of white blood cells. This inflammation is pretty nasty, I guess you'll have to take antibiotics for a while after you leave." he took a pack of sterile cloths out of his bag "This should help but you need to take care of that prosthetic arm, or you're gonna have a lot of problems. By the way what happened?"

"Count Dooku, in the very beginning of the Clone Wars. Me and Padmè went to rescue my Master on Geonosis, we got caught, put to death sentence and saved by an army of clones. The battle of Geonosis was the first real battle of the war. Count Dooku was a former Jedi Master who turned to the Dark Side and became a Sith, the Emperor apprentice. I fought him but I wasn't ready for someone as well trained as he was. And so powerful. He caught me off guard and cut my arm. This is the third prosthetic I have!"

"You're a smart ass Anakin, if you keep behaving like this..."

"I'll be dead before my retirement age comes. I know. People keeps telling me I'm too reckless since I was a kid, when I raced with the pods." I laughed as he applied the antibiotic cloth at the joint of my stub and the neural pad. Instantly I felt a little better. Not that it hurt, at least not like in the beginning, when my system rejected the intrusion of the neural pad and I spent a week in awful pain trying to move the first prosthetic arm that was soon replaced with the official one. A hell of a week really.

He snorted in derision. "You're gonna get yourself killed boy. One day or another."

"Better dead than Sith."

"Sith? You're the Hero of the Republic, you can turn to the Dark Side!"

"I wish it was that easier. I was a step away from becoming Darth Vader. If Palpatine's plan would have succeeded I would be behind the mask of Darth Vader."

"Who was he?" asked Janu as he reconnected my arm to the neural pad."

"Aster Landman. He was a Jedi too, a couple of years older than me. A good pilot, a deadly fighter with his saber. We were friends, or at least I thought we were. He had an obsession about knowledge. He wanted to know everything he could. He wanted the absolute power. I guess Palpatine found this obsession a good leverage for turning him. Mine was the inability to detach from things. My mother, Padmè...he wasn't able to stop himself from wanting more. Not a single Jedi is safe from the Dark Side. Those who see all white sometimes are completely numbed by its presence, just like happened to the Council with Palpatine, those who see only black are an easy target. Those who can see grays usually are more stable and can feel its presence but not get tempted." I explaned. "For the most of my life, I only saw black. I was a natural born pessimist. Padmè helped me, when I met her I started seeing some white here and there. When Palpatine tried to rush me to the Dark Side it was her presence, my will to save her from all this mess that made me realize he was the cause of all of what happened. I found out of the order to destroy the Jedi and the plan Palpatine had to turn me even after I refused to. I let the troopers take me away, lock me into that damned cell for seven years, all because I wanted to protect her. I knew Palpatine wanted me and only me, and as long as I was controllable in that prison, she was safe. Until I couldn't take anymore and escaped. That's why I'm here. I began to see grays in that cell."

"You've grown up quickly Anakin. I don't think many men could resist to all of what they did to you. You're strong, boy, now put that strength and will to live into action and act like a Jedi."

"That's the last thing I want to do. Acting like a Jedi now would mean get to Coruscant, try to kill the Emperor and get killed instantly. Nah, I guess I'll have to wait some more time to be a Jedi again."

He shrugged his shoulders. "As you wish. But remember, here you have a family that loves you. And somewhere in the galaxy, your wife and kids are waiting for you. Go and get them kid!"

"This means I can travel long distances?" I asked.

"Sure! As long as you keep curing that arm, you'll be just fine."

That was it. A couple of days after that morning, I packed the few things I had – some clothes, my old Jedi tunic and cloak, a stock of antibiotics for the arm and a datapad with a copy of all the holos of my family I could store in it – and I was ready to leave for Dxun.

Saying goodbye was terrible. Jobal and Sola cried. Ryoo and Poja almost did. Ruwee tried to convince me to stay some more time, just enough to heal completely. Darred even offered me a job with him, just to let me stay there. I was tempted to stay, really, and wait for Padmè to show up. Holding on hope wasn't the best but it was safe than space travels, said Jobal a couple of evenings before.

But I couldn't. I would have endangered them more than what I had already done. I couldn't afford them to be in danger just because they helped me. I had to disappear from Naboo as soon as I could. And Darrick gave me one month to get on Dxun before he would arrive there too. I had to go. I had a long trip ahead of me and I had to move.

I swore I would send them a note from time to time to show that I was still alive and well, and they assured me they would contact me as soon as they had news from Padmè.

With a last hug, I stepped into the cockpit of the ship and took off.

I took my first step into the long path of the Fall of the Empire.


	15. Distant Dream

_...He needed to get out of there. The tension in that room was just too much. Too much had happened during those faithful days, the last days of the Republic. He felt like he was in a trash compacter and the walls were closing in on him. Never in his life he had felt that sensation of claustrophobia like in that moment._

_The dry air of Tatooine hit him on his face like a blast. It was getting late, the second sun of the planet was almost behind the horizon. Soon night would fall and being out there would become too dangerous. He needed that break, and he needed it now._

_Another Jedi had just died by the hand of that sick bastard. Another life had been wiped away for the madness of just one man. It was too much. Too much death and he couldn't stand that anymore._

_Obi-Wan Kenobi for the first time in his life felt helpless. He had made a promise to his best friend, his brother, his former Padawan, to protect his wife and his child. He had managed to get her on Tatooine but he didn't feel safe yet. Tatooine was remote yes, but not enough. It wasn't like an asteroid or a planet in some remote sector at the edge of the galaxy. Sidious could even guess that he had brought Padmè there. After the fake funeral on Naboo, Tatooine had seemed the best option until Bail Organa could find another safe place, maybe in Alderaan too. It was a nice planet, not too hot and not too cold, with beautiful places, the best to raise a child._

_But in that moment, all his resolve felt like it was about to crumble under the weight of a thousand system had been placed on his shoulder. Probably even Master Yoda would have felt a bit stranded by that situation!_

_He took a deep, calming breath, trying not to think about the madness of the past three years. He had a mission from now on, and he would have completed it at all costs. No matter what happened. Anakin had sacrificed everything for his family alive and he had put his trust in him. He wouldn't have betrayed him. He had broken the Code but who cared at that point! The Order was almost cancelled from the face of the Galaxy. Even Master Yoda had agreed that Anakin had done the right thing, following his heart. After a moment of pure disappointment, obviously._

_For a moment all the problems went a way as he concentrated and felt the flow of the Force around him, deep into him. That feeling, that sense of peace was always profoundly calming to him. But after that moment the weight of that situation threatened to crush him again._

" _What the hell am I going to do?" he whispered to himself._

" _That's the same thing I was wondering a moment ago."_

_Padmè's voice came from the doorstep of the Larss' farmstead. Obi-Wan turned and gave her a tired smile._

" _You should be down, resting!" he said slowly._

" _Master, please! I'm pregnant not moribund!" she joked, a bright smile on her face._

_He shrugged his shoulders. "I know. It's just that...I don't really know how to behave! I've never had to take care of a pregnant woman!"_

" _Don't tell me. It's my first pregnancy after all!"_

" _When are you due?" he asked folding his arms at his chest._

" _Next month if I made my math right." she said, fondly caressing her round belly "I can't wait to have him here."_

" _Is it a boy?" he asked curiously. They had been travelling together for about a week but they had never actually talked about the baby._

" _I don't know. Anakin thinks it's a girl. Because of the secrecy of our marriage I wasn't sure enough of any medic so no one checked on me." she confessed._

" _What?" he asked, not believing her words. "You're almost at full term and no one ever checked on your conditions? That's dangerous do you know that?" he couldn't believe his ears._

" _I know. Fortunately after the first trimester I started feeling better and better everyday. Clothing helped hiding it, but the first period was awful. I kept asking what would have happened if the council would have found out, what would you have done to Anakin if you discovered our marriage. Not to mention the nausea that was incredibly strong the first couple of months. But day after day I started feeling better. Until Anakin came home and for a day everything was perfect. For one day, until he told me about his dreams."_

" _I'm sorry Senator, really. I'm really really sorry. I wish everything could have been different but...if only..."_

_She interrupted him with a gesture. "Don't talk like this. We have all been blind after all. Everyone. The Jedi, the Senate, not to mention me!" she sighed. "I was the one that trusted him first. I should have understood his meanings long ago."_

" _All right, let's call it draw. We've been cheated. The whole galaxy has. No one to blame." he tried again to smile a bit, even if that wasn't a matter that made him happy. "Except for Palpatine."_

" _Yes. I guess you're right. And I guess it's time to go to bed. This little Jedi is moving too much for my tastes."_

" _Goodnight then, Senator." he bowed politely as she stepped down the stairs._

" _Oh, please Master Kenobi! I'm no longer a Senator. Please, call me Padmè."_

" _As you command. So, goodnight, Padmè." he repeated._

" _Goodnight Master Kenobi."..._

I had fallen asleep. Long, solitary space travels could be boring enough to make someone sleep, and it wasn't a pleasant circumstance. But damn, if I kept dreaming like that...

During the last month, from the moment I had woken up from the coma, dreams like that came more and more often. Snapshots of those seven years kept coming up in my sleep, replacing the dreadful nightmares that haunted me during my time in prison. Something I would never thank the Force enough. That was, like the dream about my son Luke, one of the longest moment the Force decided I could actually see. It wouldn't be just a mere shadow of a past I hadn't the chance to be part of.

These kind of visions were totally unpredictable and I always welcomed them as a gift. Master Yoda once had told me that the Force gives anyone a special ability, apparently mine was precognition. And I was starting to think that suddenly I was able to Force Flow, a very hard technique of following the flow of the Force backwards and experience events of the past. Probably it was just a temporary thing, but...damn, do you think I cared? I mean, it was giving me the chance to catch up moments that I lost, that I thought were gone forever. It was more then a gift. It was a blessing. At least for me, in that moment.

For a moment, I went back to that dream. Padmè was...well she was gorgeous. I couldn't think of any other adjective to describe her. What the hell, she's my wife, I can't be impartial, but I mean, probably was the particular moment, the fact that the conversation verged on our child. And it was true, I was really sure that our baby would be a baby girl. I wasn't that wrong in the end. The moment, about a month before, I discovered that actually we were expecting twins, a boy and a girl, well, damn, it felt like a vortex of emotions that blew me away completely.

A loud chirp from the navicomputer dragged me out my state of bliss. I was about ten parsecs from Onderon, which meant about ten hours of trip. I had slept quite long, about two hours I think.

Suddenly I started feeling incredibly lonely.

From Naboo to Onderon, better, Iziz, was a long trip. After ten hours closed in the tiny cockpit of the ship, alone I didn't feel that well. It felt so lonely in there! I was used to travel with Obi-Wan, or at least Artoo and for a short time of the war with Ahsoka and now I was all alone. Again. Blast it, I hate that!

I tried to meditate for some time since that morning I had to skip my morning exercises but the noise of the engines and my anxiety prevented me from being calm enough to meditate. Not that the forced sitting position helped that much and that dream made me a bit twisty. Twenty hours like that ahead of you would make anyone freak out. It was a small one-man transport, built for short or medium distances, not for such a long trip. I had to adapt and I had some helping tools with me.

Jobal had filled my bag with some useful stuff. The famous datapad that accompanied me for pretty much my time on Dxun and some months more after that,some food for the trip, clothes, my lightsaber and a couple of books. I wasn't that fond of reading, but I had to kill time some way or another. She said that one was for my utility and it was an essay about the Empire, new laws and rules that were promulgated during my prisony. Usefull indeed, considering that I had been dead to the world for seven years. The other, well, the other was really interesting. It was the publication of the newest study on hyperdrive engines and miniaturization of the components to allow hyperspace travelling even for starfighters. Pretty much what I had done with the  _Azure Angel_!

Flipping through the holographic pages I read a couple of nice theories about hyperspace travel. A nice reading after all, too bad it was a bit boring, because I had made practical most of the theories exposed in the text on my own starfighter. That Delta-7 was the better thing that ever happened to the war. It was the best starfighter ever, a good tinkerer could play with it in any possible way and create a freaking awesome ship. Too bad that Ventress destroyed mine all those years before.

I kept reading for a couple of hours more, finding a couple of points that deserved to be developed in the next few months, but I have to admit I fell asleep again after the tenth demonstration of the utility of a supplemental power coupler in case of a single hyperdrive propulsion. Which means that if your ship has only one propulsion then you need two power couplers instead of one if you want to mount one of the newest hyperdrives on a starfight. It could have worked, indeed. Good to know.

The rest of the time I spent it wandering here and there with my mind, just thinking about the next few days that would have come. It wasn't a calming thought, considering that everything was at stake, but it helped being concentrated on the future and not dwelling into the last few years memories.

The future. I've always been a man, or boy when I was younger, that kept thinking about the past, about the mistakes I had made and that kept asking what would have happened if I had acted differently. For quite some time after I had been convicted I kept thinking about what would have happened if I had defied Master Windu's order and went to the Chancellor office. From the few news that filtered through the walls of the prison, all of us prisoner could only know that the Chancellor had announced that the Jedi had tried to kill him to take hold of the Republic, but Aster, now known as Lord Vader, had come and saved him from certain death.

That was the official truth. But the real one was completely different. As they transported me to that forsaken planet I felt what happened in the Force. I was already in my cell when the Order 66 was actuated. It felt like a swirl of pain straight in my brain. I felt their voices in my ears, voices of people I knew that begged for mercy or asked for help. Help that never came.

I remember that it took me hours to gather the strength to get up from that filthy floor. I couldn't stand the pain that echoed through the Force that day. And I still feel it, from time to time, like a sting in the back of my eyes. It takes my breath away every time it happens, and I still have to understand what causes this echoes. It feels like a shroud fell over the galaxy, a shroud of hurt, regret and pain.

I even remember the reverberation of the battle on Mustafar. I was parsecs away from that planet and still each blow of their lightsaber echoed straight to me. Probably, every Force Sensitive organism in the galaxy felt it. It was like watching a match on the holosports, but without watching it at all! When I felt Aster's defeat by Obi-Wan's hand, well, I jumped up screaming like mad in that cell, earning my first torture session of the next few years for being too loud. The other prisoners, smugglers, murderers and other criminals, were not give the same barbaric treatment, and somehow started taking my sides when the guards took me out of the cell then dragged my in there again. They screamed their disappointment every time.

That made me smile. Those criminals, and I mean real criminals that committed the most atrocious misdeeds, day by day, became friends. They were sympathetic in a way or another. Unfortunately, as I kept being tortured but never to death, they were left to starve. It was probably worse than being beaten up every few days. Many of them had died years before, some were still alive when I escaped, but not many of them. The two cells beside mine were empty when I ran away.

The computer beeped again. I was there, finally.

I sent a short message to the Naberries from the ship transmitter and started the landing procedure. I turned off the hyperdrive and looked for the right coordinates on the planet for a safe arrival at the base.

The vegetation was indeed lush and thick. I saw traces of battles that took place centuries before, during the Mandalorian Wars. Old skeletons of battle ships and buildings could be spotted here and there as I flew over them.

Darrick told me to hide the ship in a particular valley and take the road on the left. He gave me very detailed instructions to reach the facility through a long and deep valley. It led straight to the old Mandalorian camp.

Once I had secured the ship beneath the thick forest I jumped out of the cockpit. My legs were numb and my back was terribly sore for the long hours sitting in there. I moved around for a couple of minutes until I felt a little better, then I grabbed my bag and headed to the valley.

I took a moment to gather some details of the environment. That place was strong in the Force, full of animals and covered with a thick jungle, with plenty of perils. Janu was right, it was a dangerous place. Heavy clouds filled the sky, casting a dark shadow on the moon. Soon it would start raining. I had to hurry up.

Walking into the small valley I felt something watching me. Probably a guard of some kind, it wasn't a beast that was sure. I could feel the presence of a large group of men. Even though I was a bit afraid but nonetheless I was enjoying the time outside. Even when I was on Naboo I spent a lot of time in the garden but I never had the chance to wander around the city. The breeze brought to me a mix of exotic scents I had never experienced in my life. I felt good, really.

It took me about half an hour to reach the first sign of civilization. Well hidden there was a piece of metal layer shaped as an arrow pointing north. During long walk I had the chance to spot a couple of sites of a shipwreck that I could visit as soon as I had some spare time. There was an old ship that deserved some more exploration.

I had just walked past another site of a shipwreck when I heard the noise of a loading blaster. I stopped there in my tracks. "Who's there?" I asked.

No response. Well, it was to be expected. "Come on get out I heard your blaster!" I shouted again.

Slowly, a tall figure emerged from a thick bush right in front of me. A young man, his blaster rifle raised and pointed towards me. "Good. I guess you're a guard!"

"You're not in condition to make questions. Who are you?"

"An..." for a moment I was about to blow my cover. "Atton Rosh. The new mechanic. Master Kohr sent me!" I answered.

"Show me an ID." he said as he walked towards me. Bad idea, he should have kept the distance, at least if he knew who I was really. By the way he moved, he looked like he had a military training. He was sure of what he did, probably a veteran of the Clone Wars.

Holding my left hand up in the air I fished into my pocket to get the ID that Darrick sent me a couple of weeks before. I held it up right in front of him, showing the photo and the name.

He looked at it for a couple of seconds then he looked at me, studying me for any incoherence between the images. His green eyes flashed for a moment as a lightening struck not far from us. A thunderstorm was approaching.

Just after the thunder had boomed, shaking the air, he lowered his blaster. "Come, the air is getting to electrical here for my tastes." he said without much compliments.

I followed him down a small passage. A hidden passage no one would have noticed it was there. It looked more like a landslide than a passage.

"So Darrick sent you here." he said, probably trying to hold up a conversation.

"Yes, he contacted me about three weeks ago."

"Why you decided to come here?"

"Well, I guess because I hate the Empire!" I tried to smile.

"Everyone hates the Empire after all. But why here? This place is only for engineers, the real action is elsewhere."

"Well, without a good starfighter fleet there won't be action, never. That's my job, it was my job before the Empire, that's why I'm here."

In that moment we turned towards the real camp. It was huge! A huge facility with hangars, buildings, caves and what it looked like a training camp for soldiers. Damn, that was a real military installation, even though it was about 3000 years old.

"Good. We need your kind. Now, go to that building up there, look for a man named Kett, he's a short guy with a scar on his face. He's your boss from now on. He'll get your bunk and show you the place. It's old and it's falling to pieces but it will old on for a couple of centuries. Now, this damned moon is an awful place to live in. there's only us, and it's not much. Once you're in, you can't get out of it. It rains most of the time, animals are nasty deadly creatures. It's about to start raining here, and it pours here. Get inside and stay in the hangars as much as you can. And beg Darrick finds you a better place to stay because by this time tomorrow you're gonna hate it here."

With that said, he turned around and headed back to his guarding spot. He didn't even tell me is name. I looked around another time then headed towards that building just in time to feel the first few drops falling on me.

In the building I found a short man with his back towards the door, his hands on the edge of the table, he was probably looking to some kind of blueprint.

"Kett?"

The man turned just enough to see me. "Rosh?" he asked.

"Yes sir. Master Kohr..."

He interrupted me with a wave of his hand. "I know. Get your ass up here, I need a new set of eyes."

I did as ordered and dared to look at the table. It was in fact a blueprint he was looking at, but what was drawn on the paper left me speechless. I had never seen something like that.


	16. Living A Lie Nowhere Fast

"What the heck is that thing?"

Those were the blueprints of a huge ship, something I had never seen in my life.

"It's the project of a new class of ships. They call them the Star destroyer. This one is nineteen kilometers long. Apparently, Vader himself called it the Executor!" he said, his low baritonal voice echoed in the room.

"His ego must be limitless!" well it was true in the end "How many decks?"

"I have no idea." he shook his head "Nineteen kilometers. This thing is gonna be hard stuff to wreck."

"Every ship has its weak spot. A good engineer can find it, if he can study it long enough."

"Are you good enough?"

I shook my head "Don't think so. I'm more a mechanic than an engineer." I said. There was a particular point on the blueprint that intrigued me. A section of the hyperdrive engine that was curious. I had never seen something like that, and I wondered how a ship that big could move with only one propulsion system. That was an enigma that needed to be solved.

"Good. Now, Rosh, I must tell you that this is not dreamland. There's no way you will find adventure or whatever you seek here. It's not the Clone War." he said.

"Oh, no problem. Open wars are not my thing!" there was a voice in the back of my mind that was shouting at me, telling me that I had to stop lying this bad and start being honest. Bad idea.

"Alright." he took a deep breath then glanced again to the blueprint "I'll need to study that thing some time more. But now I'll show you your place. Come with me Rosh, the dormitory is down here."

I followed him down a narrow corridor carved in the stone then into a larger room. It was furnished with a long table with about thirty chairs. In a corner there was a cooking station, sink and dishwasher.

"This is the dining room. There are weekly shifts for the cooking and daily shifts for the guard. Three in the kitchen, six guarding the perimeter and the rest working on the ships. During the last year we managed to rip apart and rebuild forty star fighters, but that's not enough. We need more for a real offensive. By the way, come, I'll show you the rest." he led the way down another corridor to what it looked like a common room, with a holonet station, couches and tables and a shelf full of books. "This is the common room. The other guys like to stay here in the evening playing pazaak and watching sport on the holonet. And this" he gestured to another door "Is the main dormitory. Simple bunks with a thin mattress, an even thinner pillow and some covers. We are using an old Mandalorian camp, these are the same dormitories they used, and they were short people. I hope you won't have problems."

"I can adapt Kett, it won't be a problem." I assured.

"Good. This is your bunk." he pointed to an already arranged space. There were two rows of bunks dug into the stony wall on each wall of the room and mine was in the north-western corner, about a meter and half from the floor. "That's your closet for your stuff. Are you familiar with weapons?" he asked with a strange smirk on his face.

"Yes. Blaster guns and non-automatic rifles. I'm not trained though. I can use them and probably hit something but I'm not a soldier." Liar. Liar. Liar. I was such a bad liar!

He drew a heavy sigh. "Alright. I'll have someone to teach you. Now, get your things set then head to the main hangar. Master Kohr sent us a load of old Republican fighters that need some attention. They are all yours."

"Thank you Kett. I'll be ready in a couple of minutes." I dropped the bag beside me and held out my hand.

"Take your time. It's barely afternoon after all." we shook hands "Oh, nice grip you have!"

He made me smile. Even with the thick leather glove my durasteel arm was still there. "Old accident ten years ago. A heavy machine dropped on my arm and cut it away. This is the replacement."

"And you still can work with engines?" he seemed shocked. After all, it was common belief that prosthetic limbs were not as accurate as real ones.

"Yes sir. The Jedi provided me with the limb. I worked for them long ago and they helped me as they could."

He looked a bit thoughtful then he shook his head. "I guess I'll better get going. Welcome on board Rosh."

He turned away and walked again towards his table, leaving me alone.

Well, finally I was in. Really. I grabbed my bag and started filled my closet. Three pair of trousers, six shirts, underwear, socks and a couple of heavy sweatshirt in case of bad weather. And of course my old, blood stained Jedi robe. I didn't have much stuff. And of course my lightsaber but that must stay hidden from anyone. After placing it under my clothes and closed it. It was time to get to do my job.

That was it. I walked towards the main hangar as Kett has instructed. Somehow it was good to receive orders again. As a child and teenager I tended to resist orders but now I felt comfortable in just obeying. No responsibility and a job I really liked to do. Not too bad in the end, except that I still had to find Padmè and the kids. I had taken a couple of steps forward on the right road, but I was still far. But up to the moment I could really say that I was near them, well, at least I had a job I liked.

The door of the hangar was opened. From inside, the usual noise of a workshop came out along with voices and what seemed like music from a holofeed. I stepped in and looked around. The place was as huge as it looked from the outside. There was enough space for at least fifty single seater starfighters not to mention six fully equipped workbenches and probably a ton of spare parts. Fantastic. The heaven of a mechanic!

There was a guy working on the underside of an old starfighter and suddenly he slid out from under the ship and looked at the door, towards me.

"Hey guys the rookie has arrived!" he shouted above the noise of the workshop.

Another man, a young one, probably in his early twenties, lifted his head from another engine and looked up at me. For a moment he seemed lost in his thoughts, then smiled and walked towards me, as the other. "Welcome on board." he said stretching his hand towards me "Welcome on this godforsaken moon."

We shook hands, and so did the others. "I'm Haron, and these are Jagged, better known as Jag, Keyry, Stack, Jongun" he pointed to the young men around him "Novan and Ution are down there submerged in engine grease and Matt and Ike should be here soon, they went to Iziz for some supplies. Dakk, Loen and another couple of guys are out patrolling and the rest of the crew you'll get to know them. So you're Atton!"

I tucked my hands in my pockets. "Yes it's me. Seems like Kohr spread my name here."

"Well he had to, otherwise Kett would have never accepted you. So, mechanic or engineer?" he asked.

"Mechanic, even if I studied engineering for some time, before the war begun,"

"Good, there's always space for someone like you. When you arrived?" he wiped his hands on an already filthy towel that hanged from his belt.

"About an hour ago. Maybe less."

They all moved towards one of the starfighters in the middle of the hanger. "Nice trip?" asked Jag, a tall and sturdy man probably some years older than me. After a closer look, Haron didn't look so young, he was probably my age, more or less.

"Well, twenty two hours in an old ship...after such a long time sitting in there, well, all I wanted was some space to walk." I said. They all seemed nice pals in the end, maybe Stack looked a bit dark but well, zabraks weren't known for amiability.

"Master Kohr made you land in the valley south of here? Near the wreckage of that old Republican ship?"

"Yes. If you want I can bring the ship here, it could be useful." they made me sit down at a large table with them.

"Well, we always need ships of every kind." spoke Jongun "If not as a transport as for spare parts!"

I smiled "Yeah, I know the drill. Once I had to repair a droid with an exploded motivator and I was in the middle of a battle. The sounds of the explosions reverberated till the back line where the mechanics worked!" I said.

Keyry put a steaming cup of some kind of beverage in front of me. "Drink. After a long trip, it's the best."

"Thank you." I took a sip. It was a strange mix of tastes, bitter at first but sweet in the end. "So, what you've been working on lately?"

Haron shrugged his shoulders "Not too much. The last shipment of parts wasn't the best, but we have enough parts for another couple of ships but we have to adapt the components, some are Corellian, others are Kaminoan, others are old republican fighters. Smuggling parts is a dangerous jobs, not too many people are brave enough to help us."

The other nodded, Jongun sighed. "I tried some time ago to find someone able to provide parts constantly but it's not easy. All my contacts from the war either are dead or in jail."

It was my turn to sigh "Yeah, I know the feeling. If I hadn't been out of touch with some friends for so many years I would try with a junk shop owner I know but...I don't even know if he's still alive."

"What happened?" he asked, curiously.

"I was hired by a builder that needed a team of mechanics for his small cargo fleet just after the beginning of the Empire. It was a job that occupied me full time and in the same time I had to hide from the Empire because of my connections with the Jedi. There was a bounty on me for quite some time. I lived on the edge of the galaxy for a long time. And lost all my contacts. Unfortunately."

"A bounty? On a mechanic? That's strange! That's why you joined the Rebels?" asked Jag pouring another cup of that drink into his mug.

"That and because I know the Empire is something that has no reason to exists. It's based on deceit and lies. I know it. The Jedi never attempted to kill the Chancellor, he's a Sith Lord and they were trying to stop him. That's what really happened!"

"Hey man calm down! That's pretty much why we are all here! But, by the way? Have you heard about that Jedi...that Skywalker?"

For a split second I thought my cover had been blown. "No, what about him?"

"Seems like he managed to escape from the prison they had locked him in. Rumors say he had to kill only one guard then he was out, free as a bird. That's pretty much a blow to the Empire!" continued Jag.

"Yep, not to mention that with him free, the Empire has a powerful enemy to fight." stated Stack. "I still remember when I was an apprentice and I heard about him on the news feed of the holonet. They pictured him as immortal!"

"He was a spoiled brat, that's it. Yeah, a master with his damn lightsaber but he was a smart ass, always jumping into troubles far bigger than him." It seemed so strange to talk about myself in that derogatory tone. But during my time in prison, I had come to terms with my impatience and tendency to hit the ground running. "Even when he piloted his starfighter...in the end of the battle his ship was pretty much a useless piece of metal with a tattered engine attached to it. And he demanded that us, poor mechanics, would put it to use again. Damn, each time he set foot on Coruscant, we mechanics used to hold our breath for days, until he set off again."

"Wow! You seem to know him really well!" said Haron.

I nodded. "Yep. We arrived at the Temple pretty much at the same time. I went straight to the workshop and started studying applied mechanics, he went on with his training, but he came down to the workshop quite often. He messed up with our things and never put the tools in their place. He managed to create havoc in the tidiest shop. Even when he was working on his own starfighter...damn, I did most of the work personally and he managed to destroy that masterpiece! I swear I cried when he told me it had been destroyed!"

"Man, that Delta 7 was simply awesome!" spat out Jongun, Gun for his friends, I learned later "At some point the blueprints started circulating and I managed to have a look on it. If only we could replicate that engine and that kind of deflector shield..."

"Well, we have the one that built it!" said Stack patting my shoulder soundly.

"Hey, I only assembled the components, I didn't design it!"

"Kett is a good engineer, and Novan, one of the patrolling guys, was in the shielding field. We can find a way to rebuild the components!" His eyes seemed to shine. Somehow, my arrival there ignited a spark in those young men. Like they had lived hopeless to get their job done and now they had the certainty that they were able to create the next generation starfighter. Well, the prospective wasn't that bad in the end.

"Alright, alright, I'll try...but please, the Delta 7 shape was just incredibly ridiculous. It just looked like a freaking...I don't know...a pointer or what! The Clones had a couple of designs that was really good, the  _ARC-170_ was one of the best!" I told them.

"And if we use the space for the co-pilot for...I don't know...a more powerful deflector, we can probably have a very powerful thing to work on!" continued Haron, his eyes fixated on a far away point behind me.

That was a ship I never had the chance to get my hands on, but I saw them in battle, and with a good pilot and a well trained gunner, that little piece of war art could be a nasty thing to shoot off. A couple of changes here and there, well, it could even get better.

"Exactly my point! And if..."

Gun stopped me. "Calm down Rosh! Time is running short, that's true, but I don't really think that the chiefs of the Rebellion will declare open war in the next few hours! Right now, we have enough work to do with these stuff. Let's finish these before we start building castles in the air."

He was right. Mechanics had the bad habit to confabulate about engines and keeping adding new details every time the conversation changed point of view. "You're right...but please, call me Atton. I've been called Rosh for so long that I almost forgot my own name!"

"Alright Atton. Now, let's get down to buisness. Can you repair a hyperdrive propulsion engine?" asked Jag "There's one that's been giving us a lot of troubles for weeks and no one can get anything right out of it." he continued.

"Sure. I've been a bit out of touch with the latest technology but I can catch up."

"This one's old, don't worry. At least ten years. It's down there, near the bench under the window. It's all yours. If you can repair it, next time I'll get to set foot on Iziz I'll by you a beer."

"Is it a challenge?" I asked looking at the workbench. "'Cause I'm up to it!"

Haron smiled as he gave me a toolbox. "Yes. Make it work. Then we'll talk about yout idea of a modified ARC-170. Deal?"

I stood up. "Deal. Now, let's get to work, or I fear Kett won't be happy about us!"

"You can bet on it! He's a slave trader, that's what he is!" smiled Keyry "I have to concentrate on that modulator or I'm a dead man!

Quickly we all got to our work and finally I was in my element again.


	17. Work In Progress

It was working. Within a week, I was already integrated into their routine. Dakk gave me a couple of lessons with firearms, which obviously I didn't really need, enough to handle the patrolling shift he said. The weapons where rather different from the ones I was used to, they had been developed faster than engines and ships apparently. One of the newer rifles released, the E-11 blaster rifle, was indeed a good weapon, well balanced and everything, but blasters were always a bit too clumsy for my tastes. But after all, not everyone was a Jedi, I couldn't expect to have a bunch of lightsaber masters around me. Counting the resources released for the Great Jedi Purge, as it was called, it would have been a miracle if the Jedi still alive were ten, maybe fifteen. It was depressing.

That week I mostly worked in the workshop, repairing things and when I had some spare time I started working on the draft of a blueprint for the new ship I had in mind. Kett said he had a contact at Incom, the biggest company that crafted ships of every type, from plain landspeeders to high tech starfighters, and that they could build us some ships if we could come up with a functioning prototype. It was gonna take a lot of work, if they wanted a fully functional one. It was like they wanted to challenge us.

It took me a couple of days to get used to the long hours of work and patrolling. The place was well hidden, but the extension was just huge. It took six men to patrol it carefully, not only to check on possible intruders, but from the moon's fauna too. There were beasts, big ones, that sometime created some nasty problems. They chewed on cables, dug on roofs and walls. Not to mention that they were incline to attack any life form they encountered.

In the end I managed to get that hyperdrive engine to work, much to Haron shock. It took me a couple of days of work but in the end it was as good as new. Even Kett, who was one of the best engineers available out of the ranks of the Empire, couldn't figure out the problems, which proved to be a wrong bolt in the wrong place, a tiny detail that caused the whole system to short-circuit. Once I found a bolt of the right caliber, it went just fine.

One day I was working on an engine when I realized that we lacked something of vital importance. Astromech droids. Those little metal barrels were absolutely vital in the life of a workshop!

With the idea flipping around in my head, I slipped out from under the ship. "Haron?" I called "What about astromech droids?" I asked.

His voice came from under another ship "We can't afford them. They aren't cheap you know!"

"Do we have a spare motivator and an hard disk?" I asked.

"Look through that heap of junk, maybe you can find something!" shouted Dakk.

Jumping to my feet, I went searching for the basic components of an astromech droid. It wouldn't have been too different from a protocol droid, and I had manipulated Artoo enough time to remember every wire and connection. In the farthest corner of the hangar I had seen the skeleton of an old R5 unit and that would help me a lot. Probably that poor droid had some kind of malfunctioning that no one knew how to repair and had been scavenged for spare parts. It was a common procedure after all.

Scrambling here and there I found what I was looking for. I managed to find a computer spine, an energy plug and a soldering machine too. We had plenty of wires and cables, so I started putting it together at once. With an astro droid our work would get easier and faster. Spending an afternoon working on it would be repaid in the span of a couple of weeks.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" asked Jag from his place at the workbench, where he was repairing a short-circuited power coupler. "Building droids is not that easy!"

"I built one when I was nine years old." I told them "And seven years ago it was still full functioning. Give him some luck, and Threepio should still be working. The problem is that I don't have a clue where he is!"

"But the 3PO series was a protocol droid model. We're talking about astromechs!" he replied.

"I know, but I've had my way with a couple of these barrels during the years of the war. Some ships required a droid to be functional, and sometimes they got the majority of the damage. I've repaired quite a lot of them and customized one too. He helped me a lot back in the days."

Suddenly I felt a surge of nostalgia for Artoo, that little punk of a droid. He might had been a headstrong one, but he was a friend. He kept so many secrets...and I was sure he would never spill any of it. On the contrary, Threepio was a bit unreliable on that side. He's a hell of a talker that one! More than what I had intended him to be!

A couple wires more and the voice modulator was connected to the primary hard disk which waited to be programmed. The secondary one was already connected and the servomotor too. The primary parts were all equipped, after that I soldered the computer spine, the power plug, the long lasting battery I had found under a mountain of junk, pretty much pristine and ready to be used. The main problem was getting the right frequency for the motivator.

About two hours of work and I was already loading up the software from a computer station when we heard someone shouting from the main building, then a sort of high pitched whistle followed.

"What on earth..." started Dakk slipping outside the hangar.

Maybe thirty seconds later Jon who was in charge of the kitchen that week came in running like mad. "Please tell me someone of you is able to repair a water pipe!"

"What happened?" asked Haron.

"I was getting lunch ready when I heard a strange noise from the plumbing. Like a crackle or whatever. Then the pipe behind the sink just exploded breaking the wall!"

"Blast it that's awful. Too bad I don't know how plumbing works!" said Haron.

"Me too!" replied Jon "And both Kett and Ution are out patrolling the perimeter, they know how to fix it but I need help now, I can't just close the water conduct and wait there!"

Ten pair of eyes set on me, as if they know I was able to change a pipe. "What?" I asked.

Keyry shrugged his shoulders "Atton, you apparently can repair everything you get your hands on!"

"I'm not a plumber!" I told them. "I mean, I..." the look in their eyes was a clear plead "Alright, I'll try. But I can't assure you anything!"

I left the half programmed droid there and ran in the main main building. Outside it was raining, again. After a couple of days I discovered that the thick vegetation of the moon meant a lot of clouds and a couple of storms every day.

Well, if outside was raining, apparently the kitchen was in the same situation. The pipe had indeed exploded. Shards and debris littered the wet floor and water spilled like a fountain from the plumbing.

"Damn, the situation is worse than what I thought!" I said mostly to myself. "Can you close the water?" I asked.

"Sure." Jon pulled a lever and the water stopped.

"Alright...let's see what we have to do!" I crouched and leaned forward to see the damage better. It was a rusty old tube, probably the builder used scrap parts for building that place. The joint was pretty much devastated and the bolts were almost dissolved into rust. Fantastic.

"We'll have to replace almost everything. From here..." I pointed to the uppermost point of the crack in the wall "to here...basically it's about a meter of durasteel pipe, a hydraulic joint and a couple of bolts and nuts. Shouldn't take long." I said as I examined the place.

"I'll get them." Said Dakk "What tools do you need?"

"Wrench, the anti-rust paint and hydraulic wax. It should be enough."

"I though you didn't know how to repair the plumbing!" stated Jon behind me.

"I said that I'm not a plumber, not that I can't. At least, I don't know if I can, I just know how to repair the hydraulic system of ships, I hope this will be the same. And I had to do some do-it-yourself plumbing work back in the days of the Republic!"

First of all, me and Jon started drying up the floor as much as we could so we could sit on the floor without getting our backside drenched to the bones. Dakk arrived some minutes later with the tools and a bucket of hydraulic wax, a dense, chemical wax used to seal joints, holes and anything that needed to be waterproof. It was a white substance, it reeked like hell and worked better than anything. One of the best way to seal up holes in ships, speeders and, why not, body armors. Once it had dried up, it was as hard as plasteel. It was designed for plumbers and astro mechanics, but almost every one in the galaxy had repaired something with that thing. Artoo had a couple of holes covered with that too and he was happy when I came with the bucket and closed him up, after the battle with Ventress.

We worked silently for a couple of minutes, when Dakk broke the silence. "You said you had to repair pipes before. When was that?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Once it was when something like this happened at the place I lived when I was a teenager, near the Jedi Facility for Galaxy Travelling Resources. The main place where Jedi starfighters came from. It was a similar situation, with the difference that in those days I was a lot younger and I just watched as a professional did the job. The last time it was about a year before the Empire. There was a problem at my wife's boss apartment and she asked me to help."

"You were married?" asked Dakk.

"I still am. I haven't seen her in seven years but yes, I'm married." I had created a story about that. I was wondering when one of the would have noticed the wedding ring.

"Seven years? Wow! You must be a very patient man! You went into hiding because of your ties with the Jedi Knights didn't you?" he asked again. He was a curious guy, always asking questions. Maybe it was because he was one of the younger guys in there, about six years younger than me, and that made him inquisitive. Or perhaps it was only his character.

"Yes, it was because of that. But she had her problems too. Her boss was one of the Senators that opposed to the creation of the Republican Army before the Clone Wars started and days after the Republic was transformed into the Empire she was murdered for being a a dissenter. Then there was the bounty on my head. We thought that we would be safer if we separated, that she would be safer at least. She was only an assistant but she shared her beliefs in democracy and we feared that the Emperor could decide to hunt her down too. She was pregnant at the time, so as I set off for the Outer Rim she returned to her family on Naboo. For some time we managed to stay in contact, with all the due attentions, but then we had to cut those calls because the Empire started listening to conversations. I didn't want them to find her. I haven't heard of her since that day. I didn't even know the name of my child." the story held on quite well in the end. It was even easy to lie about it. In the end except for our roles, it wasn't that far away from reality. And that problem in her apartment was real and I had to repair her sink a couple of times.

"I'm sorry Atton. That's a sad story." he was very sympathetic.

I put the new pipe in place and screwed the bolt close. "It is indeed. But when the bounty was lifted from my head, about six months ago, I went to her family and they said she had joined the Rebellion. I should have known that after all. And guess what? She was expecting twins!"

"No way! Congratulations Atton!" he patted my shoulder soundly.

"Thanks. Luke and Leia. They turned seven a couple of months ago." I said. That was true. At least that was true.

"Cool names. How long have you known her?"

"About twenty years. I met her that I was nine years old. Ten years later we were married. We were fine, until the war came and I started being sent up and down the Galaxy. One of the many reason I joined the Rebellion was finding them. Master Kohr said that he'll do some research to locate them and at least giving us the possibility to communicate but he's not sure he can do much."

There was another moment of silence when I tried to close the last screw. It was a nasty little thing, the wrench kept slipping. The leather that covered my prosthetic arm was soaked with water and I couldn't hold the tool correctly. "Damn, this thing keeps slipping!" I dropped the tool for a moment and took the soaked glove off.

"Whoa what's that?" Both Jon and Dakk were a bit upset.

"I had an accident about ten years ago. Nothing too bad, I got a nice replacement!" I glanced to my arm as I finally managed to close the joint and the main part of the job was done. "It happens when you try to hold a machine that weights about three tons all by yourself. Thank the Force it was only my arm!"

"Woa...I've never seen a prosthetic arm like that! That must be the most high tech bionic limb I've ever seen!" replied Jon "And I worked in a company that built this stuff!"

"I must admit I worked a bit on it. This thing can provide much more strength than a human arm. It can be quite handy when you need to repair something like this and you can't find the right tools!"

And even the mystery of my arm was discovered. Somehow, I felt it was easier to tell the story like this than explaining the real one, about how the legendary Anakin Skywalker had been defeated by Count Dooku. A number of times. Not only on Geonosis. I liked my life as a mechanic, it was easier than being a Jedi. For a moment I wondered how my life would have been if I really had been Atton Rosh, a simple mechanic. Maybe the whole story would have been easier, me and Padmè probably would still be together with no problems overall. We could have been a normal family. A normal, boring family! That made me smile inwardly.

"Your job must have been incredibly exciting!"

"Nah, not much." I said as I applied the wax on the pipe "Sometimes when I was dispatched here and there through the galaxy I must admit it was fun. But after all, I was, and I still am, a simple mechanic. I worked in the backstage, not on the scene. And I liked it!"

"I guess so. In the end you had the chance to see the galaxy. I've always been stuck on Corellia then when I decided to join the Rebellion I was sent here."

"You should have joined the Empire if you wanted to see the Galaxy! Isn't it their most successful recruiting add?" I asked as I wiped the remain of the wax from my hand.

"The Empire practically killed my parents and my baby sister. That's why I'm here!" All of sudden Dakk seemed offended by my attempt of a joke.

"Hey kid calm down it was just a joke don't worry! We're all here for the same reason!" I tried to calm him down "There's no need to be offended alright?"

He nodded. "Sorry Atton, it's just that...the Empire literally caused an economical crysis on Corellia and forced my father to work longer hours and at double effort. He and the rest of my family were about to picki me up from work when he lost control of the speeder and crashed into another ship. They all died in the crash. I can't stop thinking that if only the Empire hadn't taken control of the spaceport and all the activities connected to it, my family would still be alive."

I could only feel compassion for that boy. He was so young and he had to face the brutality of life so early. Too bad I couldn't help him. Even if I wanted to, there was no way to give him back what the Empire had taken from him.

"Come on guys, let's cover that hole up and the most of the work will be done." I said changing subject. As they agreed, I couldn't help but think about how much life had changed and at the same time how much it had remained as I remembered. Life could really be a bitch sometime, but there were people that could be at least as tough as life, and those were people that managed to change their fate. It was in that moment that I realized that, by staying in the Council chamber and not going to rescue Palpatine from Master Windu, I had indeed changed my fate, and the one of many people around me. Somehow I had managed to overcome my fear and remain rational and obviously I trusted the Force more than ever in that moment. It was an hour of agony, I felt the anger rising in me and then I decided for the best. The bare thought of what would have happened if I had disobeyed Master Windu's order was too dreadful even to bear it. I tried to concentrate on the wall in front of me, hoping that the makeshift repair would remain in place.

Later that day as I finished with that R5 unit, I felt a strange sensation behind my back, as someone had walked behind me and gently touched my shoulder. It felt like a breath of air that crossed my neck like a hand. I turned just in time to see a shadow disappearing into nothingness, a shadow that resembled Master Qui-Gon Jinn in every detail. That vision left me on edge for quite some time, until I went to bed and as I waited for sleep, in a state of drowsiness mixed with anxiety I heard his voice, a voice I thought I had forgot, a bare whisper straight in my head.

" _Well done Anakin."_


	18. Misery Loves Company

_A light breeze crossed the garden, bringing scents of a myriad of flowers with it. Under the shadow of one of the oldest trees of the garden sat a young woman, probably in her late twenties with two toddlers playing at her feet. She watched over them lovingly as they both tried to stand up and walk unaided for the first time. They had already managed to take some uncertain steps holding on theirs mother's hands or when they were inside holding on pieces of furniture, but they were learning fast and walking all alone seemed their first and only goal at the moment._

_For a second, the woman looked up through the fronds of the tree, gazing at the late afternoon sky of Naboo with a sense of longing that should have not been in the eyes of such a young woman. Her thoughts flew from her children in front of her to her disappeared husband and for a second she felt the bitter sting of tears behind her eyelids. They had been separated before, but never this long and she always managed to gather some information about his whereabouts and most of all his health and safety but this time, that was out of question._

" _Hey baby sister...are you alright?" the voice of another women that pulled her back from her thoughts._

" _I'm fine Sola it's just a moment of sadness."_

" _Do you mind if I sit with you for a moment?" asked the woman, a worried look in her eyes. It was a torture seeing her sister so desperate._

" _Sure. After all, misery loves company!" answered the younger woman, resignation filled her voice._

_Sola sat down beside her sister. "I can't even think about what you're going through, Padmè. I don't know if I would manage to stay up as you do if I didn't know where Darred was. It must be a torture."_

" _Not knowing whether Anakin is alive or not? Yes, it is. But Master Obi-Wan keeps telling me that he's alive, that he can feel it through the Force. I have to trust him, he's the Jedi."_

_Sola pulled her sister in a tight hug. "I'm sorry you have to go through this. How long has he been away?"_

" _You mean held prisoner by the Empire? One year, one month and six days. Basically the last time I saw him was a month before the twins were born." she replied, laying her head on her sister's shoulder. They had arrived for a short visit to her family about two days before for the birthday of the twins and that was the first time they had some time to speak all alone, from sister to sister, without the presence of any other sentient around. Of course Luke and Leia didn't count, they were too young to remember anything from that conversation._

" _You've been counting the days haven't you?"_

_Padmè nodded, a soft sniffle masked her sudden urge to cry. "Yes. And I think I will always count down the days until I see him again."_

_Sola's hug tightened even more. "You must miss him a lot."_

_A tear slowly made its way in the corner of her eye. "Yes. And I can't do anything about it. He sacrificed himself to save us. It cost him everything and I..."_

" _Hush little sister, don't worry. You'll be alright, he'll be perfectly fine." she tried to console her. A sudden memory of them in the same situation, long years before, came up in her mind. Sola couldn't remember why Padmè was upset and what she had said to calm her, but she had this feeling of deja vu that amused her._

" _It's just that that...I miss him so much!" now tears were flowing without constraint._

" _I know baby sister I know. Just remember that he'll always be with you. He may not be here physically, but I know that every moment he spends it thinking of you. I may not know him as well as you do but that day you brought him here before you went to the Lake Retreat I knew from the very moment he set foot through that door that he loved you. Never forget that." said Sola in a resolute tone "He will return. He's just waiting for the right occasion. If he's not here yet, it means it's not the right time, that he feels you're still in danger. Remember what you told me, he sacrificed himself to save you. You and your children. That man is a saint, not only a Jedi."_

" _He really is. He was so excited when I told him I was pregnant that day on Coruscant...I thought he would be upset and probably angry but...no he was simply ecstatic."_

" _As every husband with a sane mind would have been. What kind of man would have he been if, after you told me you were pregnant, he would have been angry? That wouldn't make sense, it's not in his character." Sola was doing her best to cheer her up but she was in an incredibly difficult situation. It was hard to find the right words to make her feel better._

" _I know. But, well, our position wasn't the best at the time. I was still a public personality and he was, well, he still is, a Jedi. And Jedi cannot get married. They're not even supposed to fall in love with anyone!" Padmè looked away for a moment, gazing to a undefined spot in the garden. "We chose the hard way and look where it drove us."_

" _At least you have these two. They're just adorable." Sola glanced at her niece and nephew. Last time she had seen them they were seven months old and had just started crawling around. Now it seemed like they were just a step away from walking. Time passed so fast. "And remember that as long as you stay with Master Kenobi you'll be safe."_

" _I hope. But as long as Anakin will be far from me I don't think I'll ever be alright." Padmè wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand._

" _Try to hold on though, or these two will get two spoiled kids." Sola looked at the twins again. They were now crawling on the soft grass, every attempt to walk forgot in favor of a butterfly that flew around them. A look of pure bliss on their tiny faces showed the naive fascination of their youth._

_For a moment, mother and aunt watched as Luke tried to catch the multicolored insect with his hand, stretching out then falling squarely on the ground with a soft thud. That accident didn't stop him from his prey and with a resolution far beyond his year and two days long life he got up again on his knees and seemingly thought about a way to get that butterfly. His mother smiled through tears._

" _You know, sometimes I wake up at night with the feeling of him right beside me. I try to touch him but I feel only the cold sheets. It's like an echo of his presence. Somehow, in that moment, before I realize he's not really there, I don't miss him so much. I feel a sort of connection with him in those moments."_

" _Have you talked to Master Kenobi about this?" asked Sola._

_Padmè shook her head. "No, I never thought it was important. It's a thing between him and me. I'd like it to be so for quite some time more."_

" _As you wish little sister. But I think you should talk to someone. You can't just wait to get here to vent out your frustration." Padmè was about to reply but Sola stopped her immediately "And don't tell me you're not frustrated! You've been hiding for more than a year now, you're a single mother, pass me the term, with your husband kept away from you by the man you trusted with all your heart years ago. Everything you believed in has crumbled to pieces and still you hold on like nothing happened. You're frustrated and you need to talk about it."_

_Sola was adamant about it. She loved her sister with all her might and she couldn't bear to see her like this. The shell of what she had always been just a year before. Her heart cringed every time they talked, be it face to face or through comlink, and she said that she was fine. She wasn't fine at all, but she held on nontheless._

" _You're right. You started talking like mom you know that?" said Padmè looking up at her sister._

" _I know. Darred keeps telling me the same."_

" _Well, I'm indeed frustrated. Senator Organa tries to help us as he can. He found us a place to stay but it's only temporary. He keeps us hidden and protected, but I'm out of everything. We started an underground rebellion and I can't even talk to the other Senators. I'm stuck on Alderan with the kids." She explained. "Obi-Wan tries to help us as much as he can but apparently he's a bit uncomfortable with the kids. He says he's never been too happy to take care of little children and that somehow he was relived to have Anakin as a Padawan, since he was already grown up." she confessed "He's always a bit edgy when he's around the twins."_

" _Give him time. These two will grow up one day or another and he'll be more than willing to have them around." Leia was holding on her gown as he pulled herself to her feet. Sola then pulled her up and sat her in her lap. "He's a Jedi, alright, but he's human after all. He can't flee from them forever."_

" _Let's hope so. Right now, I have to take care of them mostly alone. And thank the Force they started eating solid food quite early!"_

_Padmè smiled as she saw the figure of the Jedi Master coming out from the kitchen. As usual, he bore his typical worried face as he strode towards them. He was tormenting his beard, a bad habit he had developed during the last few months. "Your mother wanted to inform you that dinner is almost ready" he said politely "and that she would like to talk to both of you before."_

" _You know you can cut the formalities here, Obi-Wan?" asked Padmè in a amused tone._

_Suddenly his shoulders sag like an empty sack. "I know. It's just that...I don't know. This is a family reunion, I feel out of place that's all."_

" _Master Kenobi, please don't be silly. You're part of this family too." said Sola._

" _Well...I'm not used to it. The only family I can remember was the Jedi Order and..."_

" _There's no need to justify yourself Master Kenobi." Said Sola standing up with Leia in her arms. "Just try to relax and enjoy what life gives you day by day. It might be very different from what you may have thought years ago, but right now churning on your thoughts, that's not for the best. I think your Masters would think the same."_

_Obi-Wan nodded. "You speak very wisely Sola. I'll try to take your advise." he said, a tired smile on his face._

" _Good. Now, let's get inside, or Mom will get angry." and she headed towards the house._

_But Obi-Wan hadn't come out only to call them in for dinner. He needed to speak to Padmè alone, and she had understood that._

" _What's going on?" she asked holding Luke's hand as he stood up himself._

" _I..." he stopped for a moment as he sat on the bench "I think I...I don't know. I'm confused. The Force is in turmoil. I feel a distress, much like when the war started. I don't know. Palpatine is planning something. I fear this something might get a huge problem in the future." he confessed._

_He seemed really worried and that wasn't a good sign. "Do you think we're in danger?" she asked, her shoulders sagging a bit._

_He shook his head. "Not now. At least I hope. Right now it's hard to understand the Force now. I must say that sometime I miss Anakin's spontaneity. He may have been rushing into action too many times, and sometimes he was horribly wrong about being so hasty, but he has a strong relationship with the Force. He seems to understand instinctively the flow of the Force."_

_Padmè smiled for a moment. "Too bad sometimes his instinct drove him to take the wrong decision!"_

_Obi-Wan chuckled. "Don't tell me. I had to deal with his wrong decisions for thirteen years!" he took a deep breath "And, to be completely sincere, I really hope to deal with him again soon. I miss him!"_

" _That's something we have in common." she replied. "Now, what do you think? Should we get inside?"_

" _Sure. Come on Squid!" she called her son "It's time for dinner!"_

_As she took him up in her arms she earned a series of laugh and giggle from the little boy. She placed a kiss on his forehead then, preceded by the Jedi, she walked towards the house._

"Come on Rosh sun's up and shiny get your ass out of that bunk!" shouted Kett at some point, waking me up from my dream. I almost hit my head on the roof of the bunk when I heard his yell.

"I'm up!" I groaned. "I'm up!" I repeated as I turned on my back. I was sleeping prone with an arm hanging from the side of the bunk. My fingers felt numb and I could barely move them. Cool, a bionic arm and one numb. Fantastic! For a couple of minutes I had to work with one arm again.

"Then get your lazy ass here Rosh! We've got a visitor!" he yelled again.

I jumped down on my feet and grabbed a clean shirt from my closet, then wore it and the trousers. I was working on the buttons when I heard a ship approaching over the main building. It stopped above the hangar then landed on the grassy courtyard between the residential building and the workshop.

I followed the other guys outside, yawning. I must have had a stupid smile on my face because Ution kept looking at me like he had seen the most strange being in the Galaxy. "You're smiling!" he said.

"I had the most pleasant dream of the last few nights!" I told him getting the last button fastened. Only after I had spoken I realized how stupid it must have sounded that sentence.

"Ah ah...I guess it implied your wife!" he replied with a meaningful glance.

I chuckled a bit. "Yeah, but it wasn't as you think." Well, it wasn't!

"Yeah yeah, like I believe you!"

"Shut up you two. Master Kohr is here!" growled Kett. Immediately we stood silent.

The ship opened up and Darrick jumped out of the cockpit. His hair and beard were shorter than when I saw him about two months before. He seemed tired, but after a space trip it was normal. Keeping the same constricted position for long could be exhausting.

He wore his jacket and strode towards us. "Good morning guys! How's our best mechanic squad?" he asked cheerfully.

"Just fine Master Kohr. We've been waiting for you." replied Kett shaking hands with him.

"Good. I hope I didn't wake up anyone. It's pretty early here."

"Only our rookie, Rosh there." the engineer pointed at me behind his shoulder. "He's a bit lazy in the morning."

Darrick smiled. "I know. I've known him for a long time. He was one of our best mechanics back in the good days. He's always been a bit lazy."

"Oh thank you Master Kohr! That's good for reputation!" I replied at his taunt. "Though I have to admit I don't give a damn about reputation!"

"So true. But, come on, let's get inside. I'm a bit hungry and I guess you didn't have breakfast yet. It would be nice to talk in front a steaming cup of coffee, don't you think?"

Following his suggestion, we all got inside and those who were in charge of feeding us for that week, me included, started working in the small kitchen. The hole in the wall had been repaired even in the patch was quite evident, stark white against the gray stone wall. We weren't good builders in the end.

"So..." he started as he sat down at the table. "I was told you've taken giant steps from the last time I was here."

"Yes sir." Promptly replied Kett. "We have a couple of ideas for a new starfighter. The rookie down there..." and he pointed at me "Is a great element. We managed to come up with some great ideas and projects. We have a couple of blueprints that..."

Darrick stopped him with a smile. "Kett, don't worry. I leave all the technical stuff to your team. I've never understood much about engines, there's no need to try and explain it. I would never comprehend anything you tell me."

I chuckled. "Don't tell me." I said to myself as I sat at the table.

"Oh." our chief engineer seemed a bit disoriented. "Well, if you're not here for the technical stuff, then why?"

Darrick took a sip of coffee before answering. "Well, there's been a bit of turmoil in the Empire in the last months. They had some serious problems, starting from the rousing of some planets in the Inner Rim to the insurrection of the Mining Guild on Bakura just a couple of days ago. Not to mention that one of their most dangerous criminals escaped a while ago and disappeared like steam in the wind." he explained. "Basically I'm here to see if you're alright and if you need anything. Not to mention that Atton is a very good friend of mine and I wanted to pay a visit to see if he's ok."

The rest of the day went on as usual, work proceeded and finally we decided to start working on the prototype of the starfighter we had designed. Darrick was enthusiast, even if he didn't really know what anything drew on the project meant or what was its function. He was glad to know that we were working fine together.

After dinner, Darrick told me, or better, hinted that he wanted to talk to me in private. The other guys were all watching the holonews or playing pazaak. Some of them were deeply engrossed in a conversation on the difference between swoop and pod races, if it was legitimate to consider them the same or two different racing sports. I was about to intervene just to tell them that swoop bikes were slower but easier to drive than a pod, but Darrick was urging me to find an excuse for leaving, so I stopped in my tracks and came up with the lamest excuse I could find.

"Guys, I had an idea about that deflector we were working on earlier. Do you care much if I leave?" I asked.

"No Atton, no. Pazaak is not your thing we know it!" replied Dakk hiding his cards on the table. "Don't get late though, you're loud as a blaster when you get to your bunk!"

"Sure I'll try. Have a nice night!"

The workshop was silent, deserted. Only our improvised astromech droid was in there, turned off and plugged in for recharge. His battery wasn't the best one, it lasted less than a day and we had to recharge him every night. The blueprints of our prototype were still on the table in the corner of the hangar. I hadn't compiled it. I wasn't that good at drawing but we couldn't work without a project, so Kett and Haron worked on it about a week before, and that was the result.

I was flipping through the pages, looking for the deflector engine project, when I felt Darrick entering the hangar. Silently he walked towards the table and sat down in front of me. Still in silence, he waited for me to talk.

"So, any news?" I asked.

He shook his head. "If you mean news about Senator Amidala, no, I'm sorry. Her location remains top secret."

With a burst of anger I punched the table in front of me. "Damn!"

"I'm sorry Anakin. I really tried to get in touch with the Senator but...no one knew. Apparently, not even Senator Organa does. Master Kenobi is in charge of her protection, as well as your children, and no one knows anything about it. They fear that, if Palpatine discovers that her funeral was a ruse, he would tear apart the whole galaxy to find her."

I nodded. "That's what I fear the most. If he gets to know she's still alive, I'm sure he would quadruplicate the efforts to find out the members of the Rebellion. It would be simple to connect her to the rebel senators, she was one of the first that opposed him."

"Exactly what I thought. But I won't give up, don't worry. You stay here and build that prototype, and I'll make sure that when the high ranks decide to make a real offensive you'll be in it. I still have some kind of power here and there, the Senators that started the Rebellion trust me. It won't be a problem."

"Thank you, really. I don't know what I would have done without you." I was really thankful, Darrick was making his best to help me.

"Everything for a friend Anakin. Don't worry, you'll find them."

I sighed. "I hope. I mean, I'll do anything I can but I feel I'm not doing much about it."

His eyes darkened for a moment. "You can't do much with that bounty on your head. Here you're safe. Let me do the dirty job. We've found you a place that suits you well, now, do your job and sometime in the near future we'll fight for freedom. I don't know if I told you but Aleha is working hard to find every Force Sensitive child in the Galaxy." I nodded. He had hinted to that a couple of months before, back on Naboo. "Her job is very improtant, but her resources are dim. We'll need to train them someway. She managed to find a suitable place on Yavin, but for now we don't know if we can hold it for long. It's only temporary. Like everything these days."

"Everything is temporary Darrick. I learned it the hard way." I folded the blueprints and secured them into a closet nearby. "By the way how's Aleha?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "She's OK I guess. She works a lot. Last time I saw her she was in a bar on Corellia beating the guts out of a guy that tried to pickpocket her wallet. She's the same tough girl you remember." he ran his hand through his freshly cut hair. It was a gesture I had learned to recognize as a sign of worry. I didn't have to wait long before he went on with his tale. "You know, she's taken quite a burden all on herself. Gathering all those children...It's dangerous you know that?" he asked, a hint of tear in his eyes.

"More dangerous than the Outer Rim sieges? Don't think so. She's a great Jedi Darrick. You know it better than me. Trust her and everything will be alright. She knows what she's doing." I tried to reassure him. Aleha might have been rushy and impulsive, but she was one of the best in her field. Scouting and protecting people were her field. She could sense danger a mile away.

"I know Anakin it's just that...I don't know. Maybe it's because she's my sister that I am so worried."

I nodded, smiling. "Yep. Attachment isn't the best for those in our field, don't you think? Look where it got us!" the bitterness of that statement hit me like a blow to my head as I pronounced it.

For a second a smile curved his lips. "I know. Unfortunately I know. We know, I dare to say!"

We might have been young at the time, we were both not yet thirty, but we had seen the worst of life up to that moment. The whole Galaxy was going through the darkest of times, and our existences were in order to go through even darker moments. Absent minded, I folded my arms across my chest, pondering his words for a moment. "Misery loves company Darrick." I said laconically.

"And company loves more. I know Anakin. We're all deep in mud to our necks. Some even higher. But we have to be patient. One day or another we'll figure a way out to make things right again. It will take time, but we'll make it. Tyranny never lasted too long in this galaxy. As long as there's at least a Jedi alive here, there will always be someone to face the Sith." he was so serious that no one would have doubted his resolve, never. Every Jedi that had survived the Great Jedi Purge and still had the will to fight had to participate. As we had said, misery loves company, and none of us was particularly happy in his life.

"It might take a long time."

"It will take the time we need. We can't just run to Coruscant and assault the Empirial Palace. Not if we want to survive to see the next sunrise." he stated. "We need to recover we've taken a huge blow. Not only the Order but the whole galaxy."

He was right. He was damn right. There was no way someone could ever be disagreeing with him about it. I myself had come to the same realization in the end. We were bound to wait and see the evolving of events and wait. But waiting could get exhausting at some point.

We were both silent for a moment before we heard a thunder booming outside the hangar. Another storm was coming, just as usual. As if that day it hadn't rained enough. That moon was impossible to live, it rained almost everyday and not to mention that thunderstorms were so heavy they covered every noise in the buildings. The heavy pelting of the raindrops on the hangar roofs made it impossible even to talk.

"Come on, let's get to bed. It's getting late and I don't want to wait until it rains here." Darrick stood up and sighed. He knew the difficult situation we had to deal with on daily basis, even if he didn't stay there with us.

As we returned to the main building, where the other guys were getting ready for the night, I felt a strange wave in the Force. Suddenly I stopped in my tracks and listened. The only sound were the first tiny raindrops falling from the clouds to the ground but as I listened closely I heard a voice. The voice of a woman, talking softly to someone, almost a whisper as if she was talking to a child.

"Anakin are you alright?" asked Darrick, a couple of meters ahead of me.

"Wait a second..." and I kept on listening. It seemed like an echo, muffled and distorted but somehow it was clear. I knew that voice. I knew who she was talking to. Then, just as fast as it came, the tremor in the Force vanished into nothingness, but instead of leaving a hole, that tremor brought peace and calm. Smiling like a child, I reached Darrick and sighed. "Yes. I'm perfect."


	19. Exploring The External Worlds

Darrick stayed with us for a week. We had the chance to talk a lot, he told me more things about the seven years I had lost. He confessed that at some point in his life, just after the end of the war, he had considered the idea of hiding and stop being a Jedi but his sister talked him out of the idea, convincing him that the Galaxy needed those who were still able to fight. Basically, Darrick was scared by Vader. Scared to death, just like half of the galaxy. It seemed that after the duel on Mustafar Vader had become aver more cruel, mostly because he was furious for what Obi-Wan had done to him. Well, I couldn't blame him. Being encased into that life-support suit in order to survive, I would be angry myself.

And, if Sidious' plan had worked, I would have been into that armor. Better not to think about it.

One day, just after my team had started the second patrolling shift of the day and Darrick had come with us, we had a couple of problems with some beasts. There were packs of these beasts, the local called them Boma, that were quite aggressive. Usually they wandered in canyons far away from the base but some of them could get bold any moment and attack the guards. The patrolling job meant keeping these beasts away from the cables that ran from the main generator, situated in a building quite distant from the main area of the base, the one we occupied and used more than the rest. It seemed that these animals liked to chew on electric cables and get fried, providing us a couple of days of meat already cooked. Yes, we ate those beasts. They weren't that bad, though to chew on, but tasty. I know it sounds disgusting but we had to eat something in the end, and I assure you, after a week of military rations, you'd have been happy to have a Boma Steak in your plate.

By the way, that occasion gave Darrick the chance to use his saber again after quite some time. He'd always been a great swordsman and, according to him, years of inactivity hadn't changed that a bit. He was still as deadly as I remembered. He hacked his way through the pack of beats with few swift blows, a fluidity I never reached to achieve in swordfighting. I wished I could have helped him but that action would have blown my cover up. I just watched as he had all the fun.

That episode made me remember that conversation I had with Janu just before I had set off for Dxun. That night I talked to Darrick about it, while I finished the last touches on the new shield generator we were working on.

"Do you think we could find anything useful?" he asked watching carefully as I wired the circuits to the energy generator.

"I don't know. You're the historian here, I only know that Mandalorian warriors were full of resources and that even if the technology has developed a lot from the age of the Great Jedi War, there could always be something that's worth scavenging." I stood up from the workbench "Can you help me? I want to try if it fits in its socket."

Fortunately it fitted. We had come up with the rough structure of our modified ACR and we were building it piece by piece. The shield generator was done, at least that.

"Well, we could always take a look around. Those Boma beasts weren't too hard to take care of. We can manage and you can get some dust off your lightsaber!"

That idea was particularly appealing. "Why not. I'll ask Kett if tomorrow we can go. By the way, I wanted to ask you something. What do you know about Force Flow?" I asked wiping my hands on a cloth, a useless attempt to wipe some of the grease that covered my fingers and palms off.

He seemed pensive for a moment. "Not much. I know that there's a tribe of humanoid beings on a planet in the Outer Rim that uses this technique for knowledge of the past. It is said to be more difficult than telepathy. Why do you ask?"

"Nothing. It's just that since I got out of prison I'm having some very vivid dreams."

"About what?" he asked, crossing his arms at his chest.

"About my family. I mean, I'm having dreams about...I don't know. It's like I'm watching a movie and I see moments of Padmè and the twins' life. Moments I was supposed to participate to." I told him while I screwed the deflector to the skeleton of the ship. "It's like..."

"The Force is filling you in with moments that you lost." he continued my phrase, the he sat at the bench, deep in his thoughts. He remained silent for a couple of minutes as I finished my job. When the last bolt was screwed I checked the deflector stability pulling and pushing it a couple of times. It didn't move for a inch, it was good and fixated there. Fantastic.

"So, what do you think?" I asked, trying to pull Darrick out of his thoughts.

He shrugged his shoulder. "I don't really know. I was thinking about it. Force Flow is something a bit different, is a conscious act, it's not something that comes when you sleep. It requires a deep state of meditation and a lot of concentration. I think your dreams are more moments you were supposed to experience and of course you weren't able to. They were supposed to be part of your life and now they are. From a certain point of view."

As usual, his explanations were far better than mine. He was right, from what they taught us, Force Flow was a completely different technique and the masters didn't even teach us how to Force Flow. It was impossible that all of sudden I could do it. Even if it could have turned useful during the war.

I sighed as I wore again the glove covering my prosthetic arm. "You're right. Even if it would have been cool!" I said. "Come on, let's see if Kett will let me take a day off and join you in our tiny scouting mission!"

Of course, he wasn't that happy to let us go. Most of all because the day after I was in the patrolling shift but also because he feared it would have been too dangerous, that even if Darrick could handle the situation I was still an amateur with firearms and I could get hurt. As he was complaining about my inability with guns, Darrick and I exchanged an amused glance and almost blew up laughing in front of him but in the end we managed to convince him and he let us go.

Next morning we left rather early, the sun had just started rising when we took the path that headed north east of the camp. The grass of the vale was wet and soft, there were no signs of any beast around us and there were no clouds in the sky. The day seemed perfect and finally I had my lightsaber hanging from my belt again. It was a very nice day.

"Suddenly I feel like I was a Padawan, when these kind of mission were my daily routine!" started Darrick out of nowhere as we walked down the valley.

"Yep, don't remind me. Obi-Wan had the bad habit to send me looking around for anything and he went to the nearest cantina for a drink. I fear that Master Qui-Gon did the same with him."

He laughed, trying to muffle the sound as he could. "Yeah, I think Masters tend to do so with their Padawans, a sort of revenge for their own training. And tended to be a bit harsh myself with Kahae, I admit it."

Kahae was Darrick's Padawan before the clones killed her. She was a nice girl, young but smart. I had the chance to see her in action at the Temple when I was a Padawan myself, just older than her, and she was a skilled Force user. Suddenly I missed Ahsoka and her bitter sense of humor.

"I know. I was harsh myself. But Ahsoka had it coming most of the time."

He looked startled for a moment as I mentioned my Padawan's name.

"Ahsoka Tano? Don't tell me she was you Padawan!"he asked, a bit shocked.

"For some months, yes. After the Battle of Coruscant and everything that happened after that, I don't really know what happened to her." I sadly admitted.

"She's the head of our pilot training program. She was one of the first non civil people to join the Rebellion, along with me and my sister! She's an amazing fighter and a stunning pilot! You taught her well!"

That was really cool. Ahsoka had made it through the Jedi Purge! We might have had a conflicting relationship but I cared for her, really, and hearing that she was safe and sound well, it was nice.

"Thank the Force she survived. When we received the call for Coruscant she had to stay in the Outer Rim to keep a semblance of order on that planet and I lost contact. Everything happened so fast that I couldn't get in touch with her."

Partially it was true. Everything happened really fast from the moment we rescued Palpatine from the Greivous. Too fast to even think about calling her and ask her if she was OK. Not to mention that she wasn't my first thought back at the time. I had enough of my damn dreams and not knowing what the hell was going on around me. I couldn't just take care of everything.

"Well, wait until we decide to train all those folks back at the base and you'll see her. She's doing fine by the way. She's got a great deal of teaching skills, I wonder where she learned that!"

"Not from me! I was a terrible teacher, really awful!" I replied. "Damn, do you think there will ever be a Jedi Order after we manage to clear the Galaxy from the Empire?"

"Let's hope so, but I think some changes are needed in case we manage to reform the Order. We can't go on like this." he said as we turned and entered in a rather big and closed valley. "The Code was too strict and for those who broke it were too extreme. I mean, Jedi were supposed to be compassionate but they weren't allowed to love. All that stuff about attachment is just clueless!"

That sentence surprised and shocked me pretty well. Darrick had always been one of the most rigid in following the Code, not like me and he was giving voice to my thoughts as if he had been reading in my mind.

"You sound a bit like me, you know that? And didn't we agree on the fact that it was attachment that brought us here at this point?" I asked.

He nodded. "I know. It was attachment, but I fear it was more attachment to our position than to something or someone. Actually I think it was pride. We were too proud of ourselves to even see the flaws of our own way. Not to mention we were blind enough to serve a Sith for thirteen years!"

"Don't remind me. I..."

Something stopped me. A noise, a sort of metallic click where there shouldn't have been anything metallic. "Wait a second..." I stopped him with my arm, the other hand went instinctively to my lightsaber, but I didn't ignite it. The clicking didn't repeat but I wasn't too sure of what was going on around us. Something wasn't quite right.

"I have a bad feeling about this..." I heard him whisper. I was about to reply when we saw a huge flash followed by a thunderous explosion in front of us. The blast wave sent us flying backwards and we landed on our back, stunned.

As we had been taught, we stood there, motionless, for a minute or two, expecting more explosions that never came, fortunately. With all the due caution, we slowly stood up and raised our weapons.

"This doesn't look good..." he said plainly.

"That's the understatement of the day and it's not even noon. I didn't know that centuries old explosive could still detonate!" I answered trying to "feel" if there was another charge hidden around us. It was harder than what I remembered.

"Our philosophical talk distracted us. Still you have a nice hearing!"

Slowly we walked towards the center of the vale and waited there, listening closely to our surroundings. No more clicking of mines and charges, but you're never careful enough.

"Something's hidden here. I can sense it." Darrick broke the thick silence around us. "It's big, like a cave or similar."

We both looked around for an entrance to this cave that I could sense too. It was a big one indeed, probably a hideout for smugglers or something even older. "Do you think it's from the Mandalorian Wars?" I asked "One of those places I was talking about yesterday?"

"Well, if it is, we're a lucky pair me and you Anakin!"he replied. Still moving slowly, he walked towards the rocky wall that circled the vale, a natural border that protected the place from weather, beasts and of course from unwanted visitors. Like us. "We went looking for places like that!"

"Still, I have a really bad feeling!" I repeated. "It's unusual to find exploding charges like I don't know, bushes in a forest!" as he looked around for an entrance I kept an eye on the area. I had enough of a single mine, the explosion was loud enough to cause a disturbing hiss in my ear.

"There, I found it!" called Darrick. "It's a digital keypad. It requires a passcode. Can you bypass it?"

I looked at the keypad for a second. "I can try. Usually, it was my droid that did this kind of job." and I started working on it. Bypassing passcodes and security access was usually a hard job, most of all because of the encrypting methods that were now used. That pad seemed to be centuries old. Maybe I could short circuit it and the door would open! Well, it wasn't a door, it was more like a hatch in the ground, now covered with spots of grass and bushes.

It took me a moment to realize that there was no way to open the hatch by normal ways, because there was no energy to the lock and that meant no opening with the keycode.

"I think we'll have to use the aggressive ways. There's no energy to the pad, I can't bypass it."

Sighing, Darrick stood up and grabbed his lightsaber. "Alright. I hoped we could close it after we had gone away but..." he planted the searing blade through the metal, a small shower of sparks fell on the ground around the first hole. "Woah! The door is thick!" he said "A foot at least."

After he had opened a circular hole, wide enough for a man to sneak in, he stomped on the metallic door and the circular section he had cut out fell on the floor below. From the loud thud it made, the floor was at least twenty feet below the ground level.

"This place is getting creepy..." I said mostly to myself, kneeling beside the hole and inspecting the dark cave.

"Every abandoned installment is creepy. Don't believe that the camp was all perfect when I first visited it. It was a cemetery of old stuff. There was even a full Mandalorian armor with a skeleton inside it. That poor guy must have died when they abandoned the place and they left him there.

I must have made a strange face then I grabbed a torch from my tool pouch at my belt and jumped in. As my feet touched the stony ground, a cloud of dust rose from the floor and surrounded me. When Darrick jumped down himself, the cloud multiplied and we were blind for at least one minute, when the cloud started depositing on the floor again. Coughing and sneezing, we started the exploration of that creepy place. We were walking down a hallway that seemed endless when finally our torches lit an opening on another room. Carefully we inspected the threshold just in case there were other mines and in fact we found one that was activated by a motion sensor. It took us no time to disarm it, but if left there, it could have killed us both.

Still looking for other charges, we searched for a light switch, hoping that the malfunctioning of the keypad above was due to a broken cable and not to a broken energy generator. While we were looking for the switch, we found out that the cave was indeed a warehouse of some kind and it contained lot of plasteel boxes. I gently pushed one of them and it didn't move. "This one's full."

"Those over there too. Have you found the light switch?" he asked.

"Not yet. But this place seems huge! I wonder who built it!"

"Probably smugglers. Or the Mandalorians. Who knows." he stopped in his tracks. "Oh, I think I found it."

A moment later the room was filled with a blinding white light. It took me some time to adapt to the new source of light. I turned off the torch and looked around. That was indeed a warehouse, but that it stored remained a mystery. The room was filled with boxes of various dimensions and there were three other hallways that led to other rooms apparently. It looked like there were many other accesses to the cave, since there hallways were too narrow to transport event he smaller box from a room to another. Probably the cave was a natural cavity and it was connected to other ones with artificial paths. Or at least I thought, it was the most logical explanation to it.

"Do you think these boxes are attached to mines of any kind?" asked Darrick as he braced himself to open one.

I inspected one. It was covered with dust and sand but the cap didn't look to be connected to anything. "Don't think so. But you're never careful enough. There's enough plasteel in here to cover us from any mine explosion...I can open this and I should have enough time to jump behind those boxes. Let's see if this one explodes!"

Darrick shook his head. "Damn Anakin, you're always hasting things!"

"Do you have a better idea?" I asked looking for the switch that would open the lid. When I found it, I prepared to jump. "Ready?" I asked, fearing a terrible detonation.

"Ready." and Darrick hid behind the boxes. I pushed the button and with a jump I landed beside him, covering my head with my arms.

Nothing happened. We heard the lid sliding and opening the box, but no explosion. Still with the due caution, we stood up and watched the box from the distance. No mines nor charges. Fantastic!

As curious as children, we walked to the canister and looked inside. It was full of circuits and electronic devices for various purposes. There was enough electronic material to create the basic positronic system of a droid, much like the one I used for Threepio. For at least ten droids.

"Alright, we're watching a goldmine!" I stated.

"Really?" asked Darrick, confused by the sight of so much technical material.

I nodded. "This might be centuries old, but circuits and components haven't changed during time. This is the raw material for any ship, droid, blaster, lightsaber and computer in the galaxy. If there's more of this box, we can use this material for the prototype!"

"Are you sure?" he inspected one of the components in there. "This stuff looks really old."

"But it hasn't changed during years. I mean, this looks just like the circuit I used to modify my R2 unit to repair his soldering gun when it got fried by a short circuit!" I pointed to the component he was holding in his hand.

He seemed convinced, so we went on inspecting other boxes. The contents were similar, but each canister contained different types of stuff. One was filled to the brim of stamped circuits for computers, one hid a whole and rather rudimentary portable cloaking device, stuff like that. And that was only the first room.

We were carefully checking on boxes, some of them were empty but others held things that could get useful, when we heard a strange noise from one of the communicant room. It seemed like there was someone in that cave, and he, or it, wasn't so happy to hear from us. Instinctively we both reached for our weapon and slowly approached the source of the noise. Darrick preceded me, his weapon ready but still turned off.

"I told you this place was creepy!" I whispered.

"Now I am the one with the bad feeling!" he replied just as low. "Noises like that should happen in this kind of place!"

"Don't tell me!"

Finally we reached the room and as Darrick stepped in he was the target of a shower of blasters. Shocked but still ready he parried and deflected the first few rounds, giving me the time to sneak beside him and help him. The blaster shoots came from a small squad of droids. We tried to deflect the rounds and hit them, but with so many shoots to parry it was getting hard to aim carefully. We both decided then to counterattack and take those droids down. There were at least twenty of them and all of them seemed quite interested in taking us down. Too bad they didn't expect two Jedi to fight them!

Blow after blow, we parried and slashed through them like we used to do during the war. At some point though an idea sparked in my mind.

"Darrick, don't destroy them, cut their arms and leave them functional!" I shouted over the noise of shots and the hiss of our sabers. "Or at least try!"

"Why?"

"Because they could turn useful!" I shouted again. "These are assassin droids. We can reprogram them and use them at our own advantage!"

"Are your sure?" he slashed through the last droid and it fell on the ground like a broken tree.

"I'm not sure of anything these days. I'm just trying to optimize the camp." I replied, finally turning off my saber.

"Like what? Using them as patrolling squad?" he asked kneeling beside one of the droids.

I nodded. "That's the idea. I just need to repair them, reprogram them and send them to their posts." I took one of the droid I had slashed and realized it was rather heavy. I made him sit down on a box behind it. "Identify yourself." I ordered him.

" _Response: I am HK-50 assassination droid._ " it answered. His voice modulator and speaking programming was rather rudimentary but still functioning.

"When have you been programmed?" asked Darrick.

"Response _: 3260._ "

"Man, you're old!" I stated quite shocked. "What were you doing here?"

" _Inquire: I doubt you have the permissions to ask such a question._ "

Darrick and I exchanged a look. "Listen HK, it was quite some time since you were programmed. You're owner I dare to say that now is dead. What activated you?" asked again Darrick.

"Response _: Movement sensor at the door._ "

Our doubts were confirmed. There was something at the door, a security system of some kind.

"Now, please answer us. What were you doing here?" I asked again, this time more firmly.

"Response _: I was programmed to protect this Mandalorian warehouse from intruders until my master_ _Canderous Ordo's returned._ "

"You mean Mandalore The Preserver?" asked Darrick twitching his beard through his fingers.

" _Responce: Yes sir._ " that voice and that escamotage for supplying a sort of intonation to his senteces were annoing.

"Alright, this one is really old. Do you think they could be useful?" asked my friend.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know. If we manage to reprogram them, we could use them. If we can't, and that's what most likely will happen, we can always scavenge them for parts." I replied. Two thousands years old hard disks were too small to hold on the programming sequences and data we used now, that was my fear.

"I wonder what can you get out of this piece of scrap of metal. It's...I mean...it's the oldest droid I've ever seen. What good can it do to us?"

For a moment I surveyed the twenty droids scattered on the floor, thinking about what to do with them. They were old, indeed, much older than any other droid still functioning in the galaxy. Still, I had the feeling we could get something out of them. At least I hoped.


	20. 4000 Rainy Nights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's one of the songs that connect really well with the chapter: 4000 Rainy Nights by Stratovarious

_In the dim light of the nightstand lamp, Padmè lay on her bed reading the newly recieved_ _reports from the Rebel bases scattered around the Galaxy. It had been a long day, she was tired and sleep was coming fast but those reports needed her attention now. Her role was too important for wasting any moment._

_Outside it was raining and the sound of the raindrops tapping on the window of her room were like a lullaby to her. She tried to hold onto wakefulness but it was getting harder and harder as time passed. At some point she gazed at her watch. It was really late. In six hours she would have had to wake up so she decided to put the reports away and get some needed sleep. She just couldn't stay awake any longer._

_She turned off the datapad and placed it on the nightstand. As usual, when she prepared for sleep, her thoughts wandered to the better times of the Republic, to those rare days with her husband, to her children and the situation she was in. With a defeated sigh, she turned on the bed and reached for the light switch. It was then that she noticed two small figures on the threshold of her room. Her children stood there silently as if they were waiting for something. "And you two? What are you doing there?" she asked them. "You should both be asleep!"_

_Luke took a step foreward. "Mom, there was something Leia and I wanted to ask you."_

_Padmè sat up straight on her bed. "Sure Squid, come here, both of you."_

_The twins cheerfully climbed on their mother's bed and snuggled under the thick covers. Instinctively they found their way in their mother's embrace, one each side, and for a moment they stood there in silence, just enjoying the moment._

" _So, what did you want to ask?"_

_Leia nodded against her mother's shoulder. "Yep. Mom, we wanted to ask you about dad."_

_Padmè had been dreading that day. She had been talking about Anakin but taking it always with the due attention. It was still an open wound, even after three years they had been separated, she didn't want to become upset in front of them but she knew that day would have come, some or later. They were curious kids, they had to know about their father, they deserved it. Anakin deserved it. "What about him?"_

" _You never talk about him." he started. "Master Ben sometimes does. We know he is a Jedi but..."_

" _Alright, what do you want to know about your dad?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly._

" _Why did he have to go to prison?" asked Luke promptly._

_Padmè took a deep breath before she spoke. "It was because the Emperor wanted to harm us. You know, the Emperor is a very powerful man, but he's jealous of your father. And he knows that if your dad decides to go against him, he will have few chances to defeat him. That's why he tried to drag your dad to his sides. With someone such as your dad as a collaborator he knows he would be invincible. He tried but he failed. But your dad thought that I would be in great danger if we would have stayed together and he didn't want anything to happen to me of course to you. He decided it was better if I went away and hid with Ben, so we could protect you, and he was sent to prison for crimes he didn't commit. And he's still there." she finished her tale feeling the anguish making its way from her heart. She felt like she had a heavy weight on her chest that made it hard to breathe._

" _When have you met?" this time it was Leia._

_At least those were happy memories, even if the stage of their meeting hadn't been the happiest moment of her life._

" _Sixteen years ago, more or less, on Tatooine."_

" _At Uncle Owen's?" she asked again._

_Padmè shook her head. "No Leia, I met your dad in Mos Espa, a small city far away from Uncle Owen's farm. He was still a little boy at the time, but he saved our lives nonetheless."_

" _How?" Luke was a curious boy, just like his sister, but when it came to action, he became the most eager listener._

" _Well, that was during the Naboo Crysis, as they call it now. I was the elected Queen of Naboo back then and the Trade Federation had blocked all commercial routes to and from the planet. We were dying down there, so the Senate decided to send two Jedi to help us. But the Federation didn't want to cut the blockade so the two Jedi helped me and some of my staff escape from Naboo, but our ship was damaged and we landed on Tatooine to repair it. That's where I met your dad, in a junk shop while we were trying to find a new hyperdrive." she took a deep breath again. "He was a slave at the time and we didn't have enough money for the engine, so Qui-Gonn gambled with your dad's owner and I guess with some kind of trick managed to win the engine and your dad's freedom. Well, actually it was Anakin that won the race they had gambled on. After that we went to Coruscant to ask for the Senate help but nothing, so we returned to Naboo and after a great and dangerous battle we managed to set the planet free."_

" _And after that?" Leia's eyes were shining._

" _After that your dad went to the Temple to become a Jedi and I went back to Naboo. We met again ten years later, when he and Ben were ordered to protect me from some bounty hunters that wanted me dead."_

" _There's always someone that wants you dead mom." Stated Luke a bit shocked. "Why do you have so many enemies?"_

_She didn't really know how to answer so she tried her best. "I don't really know. I guess that being a senator has its disadvantages."_

" _And after that what happened?" asked Leia, this time her voice muffled by sleepiness. If it was late for Padmè, for two four years old kids it was definitely time to be fast asleep._

" _You know what happened, I already told you this story! We fell in love and after the first Battle of Geonosis we got married. That's all."_

_Luke lifted his head and looked at his sister. "There's more. She just doesn't want to tell us."_

" _And I bet it's the cool part of the story!" Leia went on._

_Padmè sighed again. "You two are being too fussy tonight!" she scolded them. "It's really late, you're both tired and I am too, so why don't you close you eyes and get some sleep? We have a lot to do tomorrow before we leave for Dantooine."_

" _But mom! It's the first time you decide to really talk about dad and now you want us to sleep? I know it hurts, that you miss him I can feel that but mom, we miss him too and we never even had the chance to meet him!"_

_He was right. Padmè never talked about Anakin, not willingly at least. The pain was just too much to bear. It was a miracle that they had convinced her to talk about him. It was always Ben that told them things about their father. They had come to adore him by reflection, but they still missed their mother's side of the story. Ben talked about battles, of him being the best swordsman he had ever met, of his piloting skills and how strong the Force was with him. They wanted to know about the man, not the warrior. They wanted to know their dad. That night they had come to the decision to ask their mother about him right there and then, without waiting morning, when they would have moved to Dantooine. She would have been far too busy then to listen to them._

" _I know. I know I never do but..."_

" _Please mom!" they asked altogether. "At least tell us how he looks like!" continued Leia._

" _Well, last time I saw him was three years ago, he might have changed a bit but your dad is tall. Taller than Ben and at least one foot taller than me. Back then he had long dark blond hair, darker than yours Luke but not as dark as Leia's. During the Clone War while fighting against a Sith he got a thin reddish scar here, " and he traced a line beside Luke's eye "and his eyes are blue, just like Luke's._

" _Ben said that a Sith cut his arm some years ago." said Luke._

" _Yes, during the Battle of Geonosis. He was still a Padawan back then, just like you. It took him some time to adjust, but he was doing fine. If you saw him fighting you couldn't tell he had an artificial arm."_

" _Is he really that good with the lightsaber?" asked Leia._

" _Oh definitely. One of the best."_

_A long moment of silence followed. Padmè watched both her children sigh. She knew they missed their father even if they had never met him, but there was a sort of connection between them, something she couldn't really understand. She just tried and she knew that they were so eager to know who their dad was since the day, about six months before, when both of them had the same dream of a young man being dragged away from the field after a battle, apparently with a broken leg and several other injuries, that was shouting at the top of his lungs that he had found them. A man, a Jedi said Leia, stood beside him and tried to hold the man down on the gurney he lay on and called him Anakin. Before that moment they never asked about their dad, at least not to their mother. Apparently, they felt the pain in her, and they seemed to know that the thought of him brought too much anguish._

" _I wish he was with us." mumbled Leia, halfway to full sleep._

" _Me too Leia. Me to." she reached for the switched and turned off the light._

Suddenly I woke up as if I had been electrocuted. The result was a hard collision of my forehead with the top of my bunk. Waking up in the middle of the night like that was becoming a habit.

Knowing for sure that I wouldn't be able to get more sleep than that I grabbed a clean shirt, my socks and shoes and as silent as I could be I dragged myself to the common area. At least there I could to something and still I wouldn't disturb those who really could sleep at night.

Since Darrick's visit, more or less five months before, my dreams and visions had got more frequent. And worse. As nights passed, nightmares took over quiet visions. That night was the first real dream after a month of continuous nightmares. I got less and less sleep as time went on and I was tired. Getting nothing more than three or four hours of sleep per night was taking its toll on me. I was distracted and sometimes I was so tired that after lunch I could fall asleep on any flat surface. It was embarrassing.

Kett and the others were worried. I was the first awake and the last asleep. Sometimes my nightmares were so dreadful that they had to wake me up because I was screaming. They tried to convince me to talk about them but I couldn't.

I couldn't because Vader was the main subject of my nightmares. Practically I had dreamed of every Jedi he had killed. Those murders I had only felt through the Force while in prison now were part of my visual memories. I had relived them, some of them even through his twisted point of view. For a moment I was sharing his eyes, his feelings, his actions. His saber was mine, the hand that struck with merciless lethality was my own. Those were the worst nightmares of all. Once I woke up I couldn't really relax anymore, at least not enough to get to sleep again.

After I had got dressed I sat on the couch and sighed. At least that dream was a good one. I could breath for a moment, after a month of waking up screaming. Or chocking. It happened rather frequently, when I dreamed of one of those terrible encounters with Vader.

Trying to relax I stretched my aching limbs. My neck was rigid like a branch of dry wood and as I moved my head it felt like it was about to crack and by the noises it made for a moment I really thought it was breaking. I felt like after the Battle of Coruscant, a wreck, like that ship I had made land.

While I prepared a cup of coffee, I checked the time. It was barely a human hour to be awake, but nonetheless I needed to do something. Usually I used that time for exercise in the courtyard, but outside it was raining, which meant no training that morning, but lately I had found out I liked the rain. When it was raining on Blenjeel, while I was in prison, it was a blessing. The air was always hot and dusty, sand sometimes crawled even into the cells when the wind blew from north east. When it rained, the temperature dropped and sometimes the water sneaked in from the windows, giving some solace to those that were forced into isolation, like me.

Finally coffee was ready, I took the cup and stepped near the window, watching the dark sky as it poured. It was an amazing show. The wind blew strong and fierce, shaking the tips of the high trees that lined the camp. It reminded me a bit of the sandstorms on Tatooine, the only difference was that if I stepped outside now I would get drenched to the bone, if I had done the same on Tatooine during a sandstorm, well, I wouldn't have been there to think about the possibilities.

It was relaxing. For a moment, the haunting nightmares were forgotten and I could concentrate on that night dream. Well, it was good to know that even if Padmè was suffering, at least she told our children about me. And that Obi-Wan did too. From his point of view of course. But it was something. It must have happened long ago, because they looked like they were three, maybe four hears old. But even at that young age, they were smart. And growing up fast indeed. It hurt me to know that talking about me caused so much pain. Well, not that thinking about her was easy for me. Every time I recalled some happy memories of us together well, I was always on the verge of tears. Sometimes I cried too, but I had too hold on. I had escaped eight months before, sometimes I received letters and messages from the Naberries and some news from Darrick. Nothing too specific, but at least I knew for sure that they were fine and well protected.

Sighing again, I realized I had being standing there like a column for an hour or maybe more. The rain had subsided to the point I could walk to the hangar and start working on the last touches to our starfighter. Putting together all our skills we had come up with a very good ship. The engine was working, the deflector too. A few more things and the last piece of the cover and it should have been ready.

As I walked into the workshop, I looked at our full scale prototype. In six months we had designed and constructed that ship piece by piece. Sometimes we had to build the parts by ourselves. That X-Wing, as we had nicknamed it after the shape that the wings assumed in combat position, was truly a one of a kind ship. There was no machine work on that, except for some soldering done by our small R5 unit, unlike any other ship or transport in the galaxy. We were proud of it.

I stood in front of it for a moment. It was a pilot-only ship, with the space for an astromech droid if the trip required hyperspeed. Armaments were rudimentary, but they worked, and the deflector was good enough to be presented to Incom and hope they'll decide to produce that model.

"Now, what do I do?" I asked myself, as if I expected someone to answer me. Well, the night before I had left the aiming computer system placed in its spot but I hadn't the time to wire it. I climbed in the cockpit and sat. The console was still messy and some of the devices such as the navicomputer still needed a more precise calibration, but we were working on it. The aiming system was where where I left it, scrambled and disconnected from the rest of the machinery. The electric wiring was Ution's work and his style was as messy as mine. I liked it, I could perfectly understand its crappy logic and where that cable went. Dakk had tried to install another device wired by Ution but couldn't find the right scheme. We risked a short circuit of the weaponry energy generator. That wouldn't have been good.

I was soldering the cables to the console when Jon entered, his heavy steps echoed in the large room. "What the heck are you doing here?" he asked crossing his arms at his chest.

"I'm trying to finish the work I had to interrupt yesterday." I replied.

"It's barely four in the morning!" he slowly strode towards the ship.

"I've been awake for an hour or more. I had to do something!" I finished with the soldering and closed the console shut, the plasteel lid stuck in its place with a loud thud.

"Another nightmare?" he asked climbing on the ladder on the side of the ship and facing me.

I shook my head. "No, this time it was a good dream. This time I wasn't shouting. And what are you doing here? It's early even for you!"

"Sijon is snoring again. Try to sleep in the bunk above his and you'll understand why I can't sleep anymore. I can feel the stone shaking every time he breathes! It's devastating!" he ran his hands on his face, trying to look a bit more awake. The dark circles under his eyes were the proof of his tiredness. We were all stressed at that point, but Sijon had a huge problem breathing at night. I was lucky enough to sleep on the other side of the room from his bunk but Jon slept right above him and his snoring kept him awake as much as my nightmares kept me from getting a full night of sleep. Which I really needed at that point.

"You know, some years ago I lived in a dormitory pretty much like hours, the difference was just that ours was on Coruscant and we had only four beds per room. One of my room mates snored like mad. He was some years older than me, and he really snored badly." That's Obi-Wan if you want to know. "Fortunately for us, when we noticed he stopped breathing sometimes for ten seconds at a time he decided it was time to cure it. He had a minor surgery and he was able to sleep peacefully for the rest of his life. And let us sleep all night."

"Thank the gods. By the way your insomnia it's getting worse Atton, have you tried to cure it?"

"With what? Nah, this is stress, you can't cure stress with drugs." that was true. That kind of stress couldn't be cured with drugs.

"But you barely sleep three hours per night! It's going to kill you if you go on like this!" he was really worried, I could sense it. "What do you think will let you sleep?"

"Having my wife and kids back with me. I think it will be the only thing that will make me sleep like a baby."

"Have you tried with a hammer blow in the back of your head?" he joked as he took the soldering gun from me so I could climb out of the cockpit easily.

"I think that will put me to sleep...forever!"

We burst into laugh like mad, it was an injection of hilarity that made me feel better. After all it is true that a good laugh makes you feel better!

Later that week we could consider that prototype done. In theory it worked perfectly. Every component had been checked three times at least, the energy generator worked fine and could provide enough energy to make it fly at hyperspeed from Dxun to Coruscant and back with one charge which wasn't bad for a short range starfighter. We had done a good job. On the paper. Now it was time to make it fly for real.

Kett had been chosen for the first try. He was scared, as much as us mechanics were, but he tried not to show it. It was almost funny, his fear was shaking the Force around him. It was hard to concentrate on anything else like I was trying to do, just in case something would have gone wrong with the ship, so I could stop him and avoid any accidents.

We dragged the ship out in the courtyard of the camp and we started the engine. So far, no problems. It ran smooth and clean. No strange noises, no itches and no cracking stuff. It held on by the moment. Deliberately slow, Kett stepped on the ladder and climbed into the cockpit. Fastening the seat belt, he sighed heavily as if he was walking towards certain death, when we didn't know what would have happened. We had a 50% of chances of success after all. I really believed he would return to earth safe and sound.

"Guys, working with you was fantastic. I really hope you'll find another place to stay after this." he had resigned to death in the end.

"Don't talk like that Kett! You'll land safely, don't worry!" shouted Haron as he checked the comlink in the helmet he had in his hands. After he had double checked its functionality, he handed it to Kett and he wore it. After that, Haron closed the cockpit and jumped off the ship and joined us on the door of the hangar, the safe line just in case something exploded during the set off.

"Do you think it will hold?" asked Dakk.

"I don't know." Replied Haron. "I don't really know. It's probably the first hand made ship of the last millennium, we can't really count on our skills that much."

"It will hold guys don't worry." I interjected. "It will hold perfectly well."

"How do you know?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I have a feeling. It will hold."

silently we watched as Kett started the procedures for leaving ground. Slowly, the ship moved on the grass-covered ground and we held our breath as the engine roared and the anti-gravitational system kicked in. I could hear it, every ticking, every noise. Even the flow of the propeller. It was like a symphony to me. A fully functioning engine. It was awesome!

Those were terrible moments. The tension was so thick you could breath it and it smelled like a mix of grease, high octane propeller fluid and wet grass. It was a strange mix, but somehow it was pleasant. We all waited as Kett gathered the courage to lift that damn ship from ground. I tried not to show it, but I was as tensed as the others, even if I knew everything was going to be fine. I clenched my left hand in my pocket and I felt the warm metal of my wedding ring against my palm. When I worked in the hangar I took it off and tied it to the old leather lace I used since ten year before, but in that moment I didn't really care if my hands were dirty. I needed to hold onto something.

"Alright guys, here we go!" we heard Kett from the comlink. Suddenly the ship tilted upwards and sped towards the sky. There were no explosions.

Down on the ground we waited at least ten seconds before starting to eye each other with hopeful stares. Haron was moving the weight from a leg to another, twisting the hem of his dirty t-shirt through his fingers. Being the only professional mechanic, most of us were apprentices or guys with the passion for swoop bike racing that used to modify their own bikes and had learned the basics, he was our direct coordinator and most of the responsibility for our work was his. Well, of course Atton Rosh should have been a professional too, but, well, you know the story.

"I'm out of the atmosphere. Up to now the ships seems to hold. All the systems are operative and the deflector shields is perfect. I tried the armaments and they work. I need to test the hyperdrive though." Kett's voice came through the chirping noise of statics.

"It's too dangerous Kett. You don't have the droid unit, you could insert the wrong coordinates!" replied Haron.

"The navicomputer is enough. And I remember the coordinates for Taanab!" the answer came again a bit disturbed.

"Taanab? What the heck are you going to do there?" asked Sijion.

"I used to live there Sijon, don't worry. I know what I'm doing. I'm about to make the jump in hyperspace and since we didn't have the time to instal an hypercomm beacon, it'll take an hour before we will communicate again. Stay calm down there, I'll be back soon." he stated. He seemed sure of himself. Since the ship held, it was logic to try every functionality of it.

"Be careful Kett, you're the only one that knows how to contact Master Kohr!"

"Sure guys. See ya later!" then the communication was interrupted.

It was the longest hour of the last few months. For some minutes we just remained there looking at the sky as if we were waiting for something, but when clouds filled the sky we decided it was better to get inside. We reunited in the common room and we silently waited. I was used to long hours of silence and I just sat on the window frame watching the grassy courtyard outside, but the others were noisy guys, they liked to talk, but they were too worried to talk as usual. They were trying to make a conversation but the result was a pale resemblance of the loud chat about motors and sports that animated the common room. Chats I usually didn't take part to, except when they asked me about details of my life as a mechanic for the Jedi.

"Come on guys, everything will be alright." I tried to cheer them up. "Kett will contact us as soon as he gets out of hyperspace."

"If he gets out of hyperspace. He doesn't have an astrodroid, he could have made the wrong calculation!" replied Haron.

"I fear that our little astromech would have been less precise than Kett's memory." started Dakk. "That droid can work pretty well but it's not programmed for hyperspace travel."

"I would have been calmer if he had that droid with him nonetheless. If something goes wrong..."

"Nothing will go wrong, don't worry. He'll be fine." I interrupted him.

"How do you know?" he asked me again, just like about half an hour before.

"I trust our work. We've done a great job. He'll be fine."

"I wish I could be as confident as you. You have much more experience than me in this field." he sank on a chair and hid his face in his hands. "You've been a mechanic for all your life, I started just because it was the only way to have a safe job without joining the army. You should have been the team coordinator."

"You've done a terrific job Haron, you are perfect for this. Never underestimate your worth, because you are one of the most skilled mechanic I've ever seen in my life." I tried to cheer him up a little.

"But still I lack your experience." Damn, that boy was really feeling down!

"Still you have studied. You're an engineer, not only a mechanic. I'm nothing more than a kid with the passion for pod racing that helped a Jedi once and he decided to help me back, giving me more credit than I deserved. I'm just a damn lucky guy, and I lack many of your own skills. I can build droids, repair ships and everything, but my work is messy, I act on instinct and many people who had to deal with my repairs basically went nuts just to try and understand how on earth I managed to connect a power coupler with the main engine using a rope. And I did it once, when I couldn't find enough cable! Your work is always pristine. You're a far better mechanic than I am, so never forget that!"

It seemed it had worked. A shy smile appeared on his face, and he looked like all the uneasiness had dissipated. "Thank you Atton."

"Not a problem Haron, you deserve your glory!"

After that short exchange, the tension slowly got looser and in the end we were again arguing about swoop and pod races. I was a fan of pod racing, you know why I guess, but I admit that swoop racing had their deal of fun, but there were people, like Jon and Sijon that considered pod racing too dangerous, others that thought swoop bikes were too easy with their linear tracks... well, as usual tempers rose and voices soon followed. We were basically shouting at each other, not always in a very cordial way.

It was during a short moment of silence that we heard the chirping of the comlink. "I'm in Tanaab atmosphere, I'm paying a short visit to my brother then I'm heading straight to Incom for discussing the production of the ship. It works marvelously, as smooth as beer. Never been on a more comfortable single-seated ship!"

"The hyperdrive?" asked Haron. He was really worried about it.

"Perfect. It's not as powerful as an external hyperdrive unit but works fine. I even tried the combat position and it's really maneuverable. Probably Incom will make some changes but up to now, this is really a fast and comfortable ship. Haron, send the blueprints to Bill Kvuriut, you'll find his address on my desk, he's my contact at Incom." his voice was disturbed by statics but he seemed really happy. Suddenly all the tension dissolved completely and we could breath again. That was really a good news!

"It will be done Kett. Have a nice trip!" replied Haron, finally smiling like a kid.

"Thank you guys. I expect to return rather soon but probably next week Master Kohr will arrive with a large cargo to move some of the best ships we have repaired during last year. Even if Incom will produce the X-Wing, we're gonna need those fighters." I could hear the beeping of the navicomputer. He had landed safely on the planet surface.

"Alright. We'll be waiting here."

That was it. We had succeeded. The ship was working. In six months we had managed to make a little miracle. If Incom decided to produce it, we would have had a real fleet and finally a real offensive against the Empire could begin.

For a day, I felt like everything was going to be fine. Too bad I didn't know how much alcohol could affect a depressed man. Well, I would have discovered sooner than what I wanted to.


	21. Hold Your Breath And Count To Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, let's get a few things clear. This is a bit of autobiographical chapter because something similar happened to me, to some friends and my boyfriend too. This doesn't mean that I approve drinking till you're smashed for recreational meanings. A beer or two don't kill you. Getting drunk too often will surely will. Alcohol abuse, as drug abuse, is dangerous, for you and for those who live around you. I've seen my grandfather die because he was a smoke addicted. I've seen a friend of mine drinking so much he got intoxicated to the point he was poisoned and we had to rush him to the hospital. To me it happened only once and it wasn't a conscious act. (You're free not to believe me but I swear I wasn't aiming to getting drunk that only night I got drunk in my life, I just didn't know my limits yet.) Never accept strange looking drinks in Czech Republic. That's a good advice. Believe me, don't do it. It might be highly alcoholic handmade absynthe. That's what got me drunk that night!  
> So, please, take good care of your health. A drink or two won't kill you, but never reduce yourself to the state of a sponge. Stop before you feel nauseated. And don't drive if you don't feel up to it! So, after the obvious and boring speech about alcohol abuse, let's get down to buisness. Not my best chapter but still I hope you'll like it.
> 
> Also, song: Placebo - English Summer Rain

It didn't take long before Kett called and informed us that the meeting with Incom had been incredibly successful and that they had decided not only to produce the X-Wing model and to sell it to the Rebellion for a cheaper price than the esteemed value, but they also bought the patent for the X-Wing combat system, basically refunding much of the money spent for the first operations of the Rebellion, which had, it seemed, cost quite a lot in matter of equipment, structures and of course men. You had to feed those who went into hiding for the cause after all! We on Dxun were pretty much auto-sufficient thanks to the incredibly high count of beasts and the fact that prices of food on Onderon was willingly kept low by local authorities in order to avoid rebellions like twenty years before, when the prices had skyrocketed to unaffordable values and the population had basically tore apart the Governor Palace and claimed him as hostage and menaced to kill him if prices wouldn't have dropped soon. It had worked, but the new governor didn't want it to repeat the experience, so the government kept prices low. Too low I thought, but as far as it worked...

We were having a break while preparing the remaining ships for the cargo that should have arrived three days after that when Kett called informing us about the deal and basically ordering us to have a huge party that night even if he wasn't there with us. An order that the younger guys took quite seriously and almost instantly started thinking about everything we needed. Basically we needed, at least in their opinion, lots of alcoholic stuff. Some of them after lunch took the small ship we used to go back and forth Onderon for supplies and when they returned it took us quite some time to retrieve what they had bought.

One of the younger guys, Matt, was a skilled mechanic but also a very good cook and he had volunteered to prepare something special for that night and as soon as he had the ingredients at his disposition he started cutting, slicing, broiling...damn, you couldn't follow him, he was too fast and making too many things at the same time. He managed even to make a Gihaal, a Mandalorian dish that usually smells like decomposing fish, that actually tasted and most of all smelled good. He said that the smell came from the batter, that he used different ingredients to make it. He used me as a human tester and I must tell you he was really good, so good I wondered why he hadn't cooked before. A bit sheepishly, he told me that he feared that if we got to know how good he was we would have chained him to the stove. I had to admit then that he was right, probably he would have forced to stick to the cookery and that would have taken time from the amount spent in the workshop. And he was the one that basically programmed the computer on the X-Wing. His work had been indispensable for the result!

Well, after a full afternoon spent in the kitchen, Matt managed to make a huge banquet for thirty hungry men. Damn, I don't think I never ate so much in my life, not even after Janu had cleared me for eating solid food months before. The atmosphere was incredibly calm and everything we wanted was some fun and I assure you, when beer started flowing like a river, well, we had fun. A lot of fun. At some point, Dakk was high enough to start mocking Palpatine. The few public apparitions he had made had become history, and I must tell you that Dakk could imitate his voice terribly well. It made me shiver a couple of times as he spoke.

But even if he was damn creepy as he spoke as Palpatine, he was still incredibly funny. I mean, he managed to make me burst into laugh more than a few times, once when I was drinking and it made me inhale some beer. For a moment I was the source of hilarity, and I didn't really mind. It was unpleasant but after I had stopped sneezing beer I was gasping for air for laughing too much.

"Atton you should try to breath between laughs, you'll choke if you don't stop!" said Sijion at some point.

"I'm trying...but Dakk is just the best! I've never seen anyone imitating Palpatine like that! He's just...I mean...perfect!" I took a deep breath then started giggling hysterically. Too much beer, I realized afterward.

"I tried with Vader but the breather is difficult to imitate!"

For a second I shivered hearing Vader's name. He might be on the other side of the Galaxy but still his name was connected to too dreadful memories and it made me shake a bit every time I heard his name.

"Crap, that man is creepy. I saw him once, and I was far enough that I couldn't hear his voice but...it's like he has an evil aura around him. I could feel it in the air." Jon took a sip of beer before going on. "It gives me the creeps every time I think about it."

"Don't tell me." I replied. "I met him some years ago. When he was still human...he was a bit creepy even when he was still out of that suit."

"What the heck happened to him?" asked Sijion.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Don't know. Some years ago I met a Jedi that survived the Purge. He told me who was behind the mask. I met him a couple of times, before he disappeared, three years before the Clone Wars. Aster Landman. A silent guy, the few times he came down to the workshop he never said a word. Practically he shadowed his master."

"You must have met most of the heroes of the wars!"

"Well, yes. Most of all those who piloted. For example I never met Master Yoda, but I met Master Koon quite often."

The evening and first hours of the night went on like that. We watched the evening news on the HoloNet then the party went on. Slowly, most of the other guys went to sleep way before midnight but me, Dakk, Haron, Jagged and Jon remained in the common room, Sijon too, but he seemed more asleep than awake, talking and drinkin. Empty bottles of beer were piling up on the table and we were getting closer and closer to drunkenness. Me above all. I wasn't talking much, mainly I listened so I had more time to drink. And in the middle of a conversation verging on the way the Empire was handling the insurrections of the mining guilds of the Outer Rim, I realized I was drinking to forget. For the first time in my life I was drinking because I was depressed and I didn't want to think anymore. At least for a night. I wanted to forget. It wasn't something a Jedi would do when passing through a hard time of his life but I didn't really know where to turn to find solace. So I kept it coming.

And when Jag found a bottle of  _Arboite Twister_ , one of the strongest liquors of the Galaxy well, do you think I stopped drinking? Absolutely no! The bitter liquid went down my throat like molten fire, but that was what I needed. Silently I kept drinking until my head swirled like a bullet and only when I felt all my senses going numb and the pain subside a bit I stopped, at least for some time. And even then, when I couldn't concentrate on nothing else then the white wall in front of me, if one of the guys around me would have filled my glass well, I doubt I'd refused it. Thank the Force no one did or I would have lost the little lucidity I had left, even though it wasn't much. I could have blown my cover in a nanosecond.

But, guess what, I felt a little better. People always told me that the state of drunkenness makes depression worse but not being able to concentrate on nothing else than what was before me made me really feel a little better.

But the feeling didn't last long.

It was when Dakk leaned back against the wall and brought up a rather painful subject that everything changed, and everything went right down to ruins.

"...but the only thing I regret since I joined the Rebel Alliance is not having the chance to see my cousin anymore. I mean, Han is barely sixteen now and when I saw him last time he was just a kid but he's a nice guy. I really miss him."

We were pretty much drunk at that time, some on the verge of falling asleep and some more lucid, like Dakk and Haron. I was in the first group. Since Dakk had brought up our regrets, well, it worked like a stimulus to share our own. You know what happens when you're inebriated by alcohol or other drugs, even a strong painkiller can numb your mind enough to make you tell the wrong things to the wrong person. Well, that's practically what happened to me. After seven months of holding on, of making up stories to justify minor details that slipped me, well, that night the dam broke and I spoke.

Basically, Haron's worst regret was the fact that he didn't stop his father from interjecting into his relationship with a girl he wanted to marry. His father forbid the union and he just left her and never saw her again. After that he broke up with the family and went to university to become an engineer. Jag had always wanted to be a pilot but never gathered the courage to ask his family to let him join the Republic Fleet. Now he built ships but didn't know how to fly them. Apparently though, Jon was at peace with his past, he didn't regret anything except the fact that he never managed to see Coruscant. It was a place that fascinated him, but he never had the chance to see.

When it came to me, well, I just remained silent and kept concentrating on an indefinite spot on the wall in front of me, trying not to faint there and then for the intoxication.

"And you Atton? What's your greatest regret?" asked Haron, a dumb smile on his face.

I mediated on the question for a moment. I had many regrets about my past, and some on my present too, but where to start? I regretted so many things that I couldn't even count them, it would take a whole day to enlist them. From my mother's death to Palpatine's betrayal to the Republic, I had been one of the protagonists of so many important events, events I could have changed, if I had made different chooses, and over the years I had come to regret many of those decisions I had taken since childhood. Most of all, I regretted the fact that I had trusted Palpatine as a father. More than Obi-Wan, who was really a father figure for me, the father I never had. I regretted the fact that I never had the chance to ask my mom about my father, and that probably I would never get to know the mystery of my own life. I regretted going to see the Chancellor that night at the Opera House, when he instilled the doubts on the Jedi Order that nearly led me to the Dark Side in me. I regretted the fact that I let go of Padmè instead of fighting for her. That was one of the few right decision I had taken in my life but it was the most painful to take. Letting go of the woman I love more than I need to breath was the worst thing that could happen to me. But overall, I regretted having trusted in Palpatine. It gave me the creeps to think about I had put my trust in a Sith. My worst enemy. The living version of the enemy of every Jedi. I hated myself for that.

"I allowed too many people to tamper with my life. Since I reclaimed my freedom from slavery, twenty years ago, I let people decide in my place. And they used me."

For some reason, a thick, tensed silence fell around us. Everyone stood motionless, staring at the bottle or the glass in front of them or in their hands as if the world revolved around them. It was true. I had been used. But I wasn't the only one.

"We've all been used Atton." replied Jon. "At least once in our life, everyone of us has been used, for a reason or another."

I shook my head. "No, not like me. I was born a slave, but when I managed to gain my freedom I passed under another and more cruel master." I grabbed another beer and opened the can. "And I mean it." It was amazing how my voice sounded clear as if I had been sober all the time. Some others, like Jon, suffered from slurred speech or stammered sometimes but I spoke as if I was sober.

Sijon, who had been resting his head on his arms crossed on the table for some time, suddenly stood up straight, a drowsy expression showed he was more asleep than awake, but still aware of his surroundings. "But you worked for the Jedi Order! I mean, that's the dream of every good mechanic after getting a job at Incom!"

It was in that moment that I lost control of my thoughts. I couldn't hold on anymore.

"I didn't work for the Jedi, I am a..." suddenly I felt a bout of nausea turning my stomach upside down like a bouncing ball. I stopped mid-sentence and tried to stand up, but my legs betrayed me and I staggered forward for a couple of steps and I managed not to fall on the floor only because I held onto a nearby chair. I felt sick and disoriented, all of sudden, as if that last beer had been poisoned or something. All the clarity that had accompanied me up to that moment, along with the feeling of numbness that wiped away the pain for a short but blissful time, was gone now. Those were the side effects. I was drunk, better, I was smashed, and now everything came back to me like a rebound shoot. With doubled effects. If before I was obviously not very inclined to keep my mouth shut now it was worse.

"Woah what's wrong?" Jag stumbled beside me and tried to hold me up as my legs buckled beneath my weight. Damn, I felt like I weighted like a ton of lead. My neck was bent like a tree in the eye of the storm, I couldn't hold my head up straight. I felt awfully bad.

"I...I don't feel really well." I stammered, slowly sliding down on my knees, my arms still trying to hold on the chair uselessly. I felt like a rag doll. "I think I'm going to..."

"Throw up..." shouted Dakk, immediately stepping beside me and grasping my arm and pulling me up. "Don't you dare...wait until we get you to the restroom!"

The drunk leading the smashed. That was a sight worth a thousand credits. He and Jag pulled me up, one each arm and dragged me towards the nearby restrooms. I tried to walk, leaning on them, but I couldn't follow them. They were moving too fast, at least for me. I had to close my eyes for a moment, when another bout of nausea menaced to make me empty the content of my stomach there and then.

"Here, come on!" Dakk shouted again, kicking the door of the restroom open. Practically they shoved me down and with some luck I managed not to retch out of the toilet. If I was sick before, now it was worse. I hated vomiting. It happened few times in my life, most of all when I was a kid and I got sick, but I just hated it. I was used to have a few drinks, after all, Obi-Wan was rather fond of some liquors and we usually had a toast after an accomplished mission, but I never got drunk. Not like this at least. I never got so drunk to get to the point of retching out like a diseased kid.

"It's a miracle you held on until we got you here!" laughed Haron behind me.

I rested my forehead on the cool stone for a moment. "Thank you for the trust Haron...really...I'm sick for the Forse sake!" I groaned in response.

"Too bad for you! You should have stopped many drinks ago!" he replied, playfully. "I mean, you kept drinking since dinner started. You deserve this Atton!"

I tried to choke another spasm but I only managed to retch again in the toilet, a hand pushing my head down as I kept heaving. "Damn, now I think I know how my wife felt while she was pregnant!"

The sudden thought of Padmè and the twins twisted my stomach in an iron grip. I tried to take a deep breath and the room spun around me again. It was getting harder by the moment, it was like having a stone on my chest that constricted me to take short and ragged breaths. It was almost painful, as much as the feeling on longing that had assaulted me, it was like a needle stuck into my brain. And the pain was amplified to the point it was unbearable.

"I should had never become a Jedi Knight!" I groaned, leaning on the cool stall wall for a moment, taking a deep breath. "None of this would have happened if I had just stuck with what the Force had designed for me!"

"Excuse me?" practically yelled Haron. "You became what? Damn Atton, you're even more drunk that what I thought!" he burst out into a hysterical laugh, but he was the only one that found that situation funny.

"I'm not just a mechanic." I took a deep breath, hoping it would have cleared my mind enough, but no such luck. "I am a Jedi. One of the few that survived the Purge..." I tried to stand up but my legs buckled and I slipped on the floor. I sniffled, trying to hold back the tears, not because the fall hurt me, but because I felt again like the first days in prison. Empty. The shell of myself. It had been a long time since I had felt like that. I mean, I was depressed and everything, but the feeling was now amplified, just like years before. It's a terrible sensation, I would not wish to my worst enemy. That emptiness was...terrifying. So terrifying that I was crying. I realized only then that I had been crying probably since the moment I had to lean on Jag and Dakk to get to the restroom.

"I can't believe it!" said Jag shaking his head. "You can't be a Jedi! We would have noticed!"

"I swear I'm serious guys." I tried not to shout but my voice came out a little louder than what I wanted to. "If there's something I would never lie about is this. I mean, I'm drunk and this is probably alcohol talking but if there's something I would never lie about is this."

"Then why didn't you tell us? Why the hell did you have to hide it?" he asked, his voice changing tone each syllable he pronounced.

I felt another rebound of nausea climbing its way up from my stomach, so I braced myself for another heave. Fortunately it didn't come, so I leaned on the plastic wall again, propping up my head in my hands. I wiped the tears off my face and I sniffled again, too tired to hold on anymore.

"Because the Emperor wants me." I answered. "If everything would have happened as he had planned to, well, I would be the one behind Vader's mask, that's why!" I tried to sound as convincing as I could. "I didn't spent seven years of my life in prison just to be captured again and probably put to death. I can't leave my family alone again, not now that I'm so close to finding them!"

A slightly awkward silence hanged on us for a moment, until Sijon broke it. "I thought Jedi weren't allowed to have a family!" he said. Good point.

I nodded, weakly. "We aren't. But when you fall in love, a simple rule written in a really old book doesn't stop you. Neither the fact that your wife is a Senator."

"That's why you never talk about her!" shouted Dakk. His voice went to a pitch so high that it hurt. A terrible headache was coming up and made me atrociously sensible to sounds and light. Not to mention that I was getting sleepy. If I could have lay down on a flat surface I would have fallen asleep in three seconds.

"Yeah. She was the Senator of the Chommel Sector when we married."

Another thing I regret now. I practically spilled her identity like it was nothing. The Senator of the Chommel Sector. Probably the most famous Senator who opposed the War 'till the last moments.  _Great Anakin, well done! Now do you think they won't make two and two and discover your identity? Your marriage was on the news for weeks after you were imprisoned!_ I heard a voice say in my head. I guess it must have sounded like Obi-Wan's style of scolding because instinctively I lowered my eyes and sighed, waiting for a punishment.

But no one said anything. At least not immediately. I had to wait a second or two before they put everything together and come up with the truth.

"The senator from the Chommel Sector?" snapped Jag, another high pitched sound that sent a wave of pain straight to my brain. "What the heck...Anakin Skywalker was her husband...or at least that's what the holonet said!" they all looked down at me, a more than shocked look on their faces. "Does that mean that..."

"That I am Anakin Skywalker?" I finished the phrases for him. "Yes. I am..."

It was over. My cover had been blown up like a bubble. I could almost hear Obi-Wan's voice in my head telling me that I was a foolish boy. Well, I guess I was a foolish boy in that moment. As foolish as anyone can be in that situation.

It was strange. Somehow I felt... _better_! Suddenly I didn't have to lie anymore. No more deceiving, no more hiding behind a fake name. No more.

"I can't believe it..." whispered Dakk.

"I wouldn't believe it myself if I were you. Damn, I feel like a wreck..."

But there was something even stranger than that. They had believed me even if I didn't show them any evidences of my real identity. No one asked questions, no one said anything. It took me a couple of days to realize that they had actually made two and two, even if they were drunk, and that they preferred asking question when we were all sober and able to speak consciously about

"I miss her..." I moaned. It sounded more like the wail of a sad puppy. I felt anything but a human being. I was sweating like I was back on Tatooine, my head spun around anytime I tried to move it, nausea was gone along with half of what I had ingested that night but still I felt like I was going to throw up again. Not to mention that if for a moment that state of haziness I had experience about half an hour before had numbed for a moment my depression, now it was back at full force. It was like a punishment! "She's the only reason I didn't go crazy while in prison..."

Someone sat down beside me. It was Dakk, who sympathetically smiled at me like he did know what I was talking about. "Don't worry. You'll find them. Just be patient." he stood up then, and pulling me by an arm, he made me stood up myself. The sudden movement made my head spin like a swoop bike out of control. "Come on now, let's get you to bed. It's been a rather hard night for you."

I smiled, or at least I tried. I'm sure the result looked more like a painful expression rather than a smile. "Thank you guys." I managed to say before they dragged me to the dorm room and hoisted me in my bunk.

"For what?" asked one of them.

"For everything."

Dakk put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a gentle squeeze. "Don't worry Anakin, you would have done the same for any of us."

That was true. I would have done anything for them. For any of them. For Dakk most of all. During those months, he had become a sort of a younger brother to me. I knew what he had gone through when his family had died, so I could relate to him more than to the others. Loosing someone you love makes it easier to be empathic to those who have experienced the same tragedy.

I tried to smile again. After that I buried my face in the pillow and pulled the covers over me, snuggling under them like a kid. "'night..." I mumbled.

"Good night..." I heard a distant voice replying.

After that, I blacked out. A seemingly dreamless, drunken sleep. That was what I needed. A full night of deep sleep. And for a moment I thought that would be the night.

I was wrong.

I was damn wrong.


	22. Fall Apart And Start Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I met Stana Katic. I met Stana Katic.   
> I FUCKIN' MET STANA KATIC!   
> She did the Shut the front door thing.   
> She's the best person in the universe.   
> And I'm the luckiest person in said universe.   
> Now writing stuff for All We've Been Through (spin off of this series that goes on with Red Rain) and Last Of The Runaways will be extremely more fun that before.   
> Still reeling.

_The air of the volcanic planet was thick with sulfur. It was barely breathable, but the young man stood on the catwalk of a mining facility, admiring the amazing show of nature. The volcanoes around the facility were erupting at full force, sending spurts of lava high in the reddish, clouded sky. A satisfied smile was stamped on his face, even though he bore a strange grin, a scary one. No one knew that just a few hours before he had committed the worst deeds a man could ever achieve. The Jedi were almost depleted from the galaxy, the Temple on Coruscant was in flames as he had left it, the heads of the Separatists lay dead in a chamber inside the facility. Everything was going as his Master had foreseen. The power of the Dark Side was incredible. He could have never even thought he could achieve such a complete knowledge of the Force as his new Master._

_His Master. Darth Sidious. A man so astute he had seized the power in such an incredible way...no revolutions, no blood spilled. Well, of course the traitors had to die, but that was the price of deceiving those who had the power. Yes, his Master was the best politician he had ever seen in his relatively short life. Probably the best politician of the generation. No, better, the best politician of whole known history._

_Darth Sidious was the man that saved the day. He saved the Republic from a ruinous fall into oblivion. He saved trillions of lives from the tyranny of the Separatists. Dooku was dead, Greivous too. Nute Gunray and his entourage had exhaled their lasts breaths few minutes before by his hand. No, his saber._

_His master would have been really pleased. Yes, he was doing well, and now he only had to wait for new instructions. And as he waited, Lord Vader, that was his name, was enjoying the natural show before his eyes. A remarkable show, he had to say. Too bad he was alone. His wife would have enjoyed it too._

_He took a deep breath, but the sulfur in the air irritated his lungs, making him cough a few times. He regained his composure in a couple of seconds, then he stood up straight again, his hands behind his back. He closed his eyes for a second, listening to the strong flow of the Force. It felt different now. Stronger, deeper, even easier somehow. If felt good. He felt incredibly well. Strong, confident, another man completely. Anakin Skywalker had been a weak, a foolish boy. The Jedi Council feared him. Feared his potentiality. Now, he was a man. His Master had grabbed the man inside him and replaced the image of the naïve boy he had always wore with the countenance of a powerful man._

_Not only a man, a Sith. The most powerful Sith of all time. That's what he was now. A living weapon, the strong arm of the new Imperial law. And it felt good._

_As he listened to the Force, he felt a turmoil. Like an echo, he felt a presence he knew really well. His beloved wife was coming. He didn't know why, he had ordered her to stay on Coruscant where she would have been saved, but after a momentary displeasure because she had defied his orders, he was happy to feel her presence there. She needed to be a witness of his power, his new power._

_He looked up and saw the shiny chromed Nubian ship heading towards the main landing platform, a few floors below him. With a happy smile on his face, which had replaced the somehow evil grin, he walked down towards the platform. Towards his wife._

_He arrived to the platform just in time to see the main door of the ship open, his wife, an upset look on her face, stood there and as the platform was completely opened she ran down towards him._

" _Oh Anakin!" she said, her voice broken by tears, as she ran into his arms, hugging him as tightly as her condition allowed._

" _It's alright, you're safe now. What are you doing here?" he asked, stepping back to look at her._

" _I..." she sniffled for a moment, then regained her countenance "I was so worried about you! Obi-Wan told me terrible things..."_

_Hearing his former Master's name on her lips was the last thing he wanted in that moment. His right fist clenched with a metallic noise at his side. He took a breath and calmed enough to talk. "What things?" he asked, his voice only apparently calm._

" _He said you've turned to the Dark Side..." tears were now flowing fiercely on her shocked face. "...that you killed the younglings!"_

_He stepped back again, putting more space between them. He was quickly getting angry. "He's trying to turn you against me!" he shouted, his voice coarse and overly loud._

_She couldn't believe her eyes. Where was his loving husband? That man wasn't him, he wasn't her Ani! "He cares about us!" she tried to calm him down._

" _Us?" he yelled, his teeth gritting, giving a hiss-like tone to the word._

" _He...he knows!" she revealed. "He wants to help you!"_

" _Is Obi-Wan going to protect you?" she didn't understand. All he had done, he had done it for her! To save her life from his dreadful dreams! "He can't! He's not strong enough!"_

" _Anakin, please...all I want is your love!"_

" _Love won't save you Padmè!" he shouted again. "Only my new powers will!"_

_She sighed. "At what cost Anakin? You're a good man you can't do this!"_

" _I can't loose you. I won't loose you the way I lost my mother!" he turned for a moment away from her. "_ _I_ _'ve become more powerful than any Jedi has ever dreamed of and I've done it for you. To protect you.!"_

_She couldn't believe what she had just heard. Her Anakin would have never talked like that! Still she tried to convince him that there was no need for any of this._

" _Come away with me. Help me raise our child. Leave everything behind now that you still can!" she pleaded, trying to sound as convincing as she could._

_He chuckled, an evil smirk distorted his handsome face for a moment. "Dpn't you see?" he asked turning again towards her. "We don't have to run anymore! I am more powerful than the Chancellor. I can overthrow him, and together you and I can rule the galaxy. Make things the way we want them to be."_

_He seemed so convinced of what he was saying, so sure of himself, it scared her. He scared her to death. That man wasn't her Anakin, he wasn't her beloved husband, that wasn't him! He couldn't be him! Anakin would never say something so terrible, so...evil! Anakin was a good man, not that...avid monster she had before her eyes. That wasn't possible. In a fraction of second, her whole world crumbled to pieces, in a way she was sure she could never put back together. Anakin was gone, forever._

" _I can't believe what I'm hearing." she whispered, her voice was so low that the sound of the volcanoes around them almost covered it. "Obi-Wan was right! You've changed!"_

_Obi-Wan's mention made him angrier by the moment. She couldn't...no, that wasn't possible! She couldn't have betrayed him. That wasn't possible, his wife would never...but what if?_

" _I don't want to hear any more about him. The Jedi turned against me. Don't do it to!" he yelled, angrily._

_Unconsciously she took a step away from him. "I don't know you anymore!" she found it harder and harder to breath, she didn't know if it was the heavy air around her or just fear, but she felt like something constricted her throat. "Anakin, you're breaking my heart. I'll never stop loving you, but you are going down a path I can't follow." she confessed._

" _Because of Obi-Wan?" he was getting obsessed with his former master. He couldn't bear the thought of him and his wife, his own wife, conspiring against him. Or worse._

" _Because of what you've done . . . what you plan to do. Stop, stop now. Come back! I love you."_

_It was too late. Lord Vader looked up behind her and saw him. Obi-Wan Kenobi. So, it was true. The two of them had been conspiring against him. That was enough. His rage grew stronger until it was pure wrath, mirrored in his eyes that changed from his normal shade of light blue to a scary tone of reddish-yellow, a demon-like color that would frighten even the bravest man in the galaxy. He succeeded. Padmè was on the verge of a panic attack._

" _Liar!" he shouted, the evil grin that appeared on his face for only a moment before was now stamped on his face permanently._

_She turned around, looking in the direction of her husband's stare. She couldn't believe it. Obi-Wan Kenobi, he had followed her! That wasn't true, it was a nightmare, only a bad dream. It wasn't possible!_

" _No..." was everything she could muster, her voice barely a whisper._

" _You're with him. You've betrayed me! You brought him here to kill me!"_

" _No! Anakin I swear...I..." those were her last words. He stretched his hand in her direction and flexing his fingers he applied the Force on her, strangling her...and he was damn delighted to do it._

"NO Padmè NO!"

That's how I woke up. Practically I tried to grab my own arm in my dream to stop myself and that caused a real reaction: I fell squarely on my back from the bunk, screaming like a wounded Tusken.

The problem was the fact that I didn't really wake up, at least not in the first moments. The harsh contact with the floor left me breathless, but the sense of panic that had risen in me during the night didn't left me as suddenly as I had woken up. I think I didn't wake uo even when Matt, the guy that slept in the bunk beneath mine, jumped off his bed and to check if I was alright.

No, I wasn't. But I wasn't even able to reply. I stood up as quickly as I could, my shallow breath echoing in the room. As the others woke, I started regaining a bit of awareness of what was going on around me. I was on Dxun, in the dorm room with the other guys. I wasn't on Mustafar. What I had just seen never happened.

But it could have.

Realization struck me like a punch in my face. And it hurt.

That's what would have happened if I would have left the Council Room that day on Coruscant. That's what would have killed her.

Me.

I would have been the very person to fulfill my nightmare. The vision, that vision that haunted me for months...the knowledge that I would have killed her made me sick, aided by the alcohol of the previews night. I leaned on the wall for a second, trying to breath normally but nausea, coupled with a terrible headache and a sense of claustrophobia I had never felt in my life and of course the nightmare made me panic.

I was aware that the other guys, at least some of them, were awake, and asking if I was alright, an obviously worried look on their faces, but I couldn't talk. I barely could breath shakily. I had already experienced that feeling. Ten years before, in the Tusken camp. But at the time it was rage that made me almost collapse. Now, it was panic. I tried to calm down, to think, but my brain seemed to have taken a short vacation and it refused to be taken in control.

"I have to get out of here..." was the first, and only, coherent phrase I managed to whisper before running out of the dorm straight to the front door of the building, followed by a small crowd.

I really needed to get out. The walls were closing around me, I couldn't breath, I couldn't think. I needed space, fresh air, a place to feel better, at least for a moment. A place where I could throw up again, if nausea got worse.

"Anakin wait!" shouted someone behind me.

No, I wouldn't wait. I couldn't. If I stayed another minute in that room probably I would have collapsed.

Bouncing against the walls, I managed to reach the door and open it. I was out.

Guess what, it was raining. Thank the Force for small favors.

Even if I was a bit impaired by the hangover and the panic, I could still run rather fast and I almost fell on the grassy ground when I stopped just outside the aisle. The cool feel of the rain on me was like a moment of pure bliss. The stark contrast between my heated skin and the cold water made me snap out that haze of panic in a few moments, and when I finally got out of that maze of incoherent thoughts and I finally got the chance to breath clean air, then desperation took over panic. Nausea seemed to subside for a moment, but it was barely a thin hope, since it came back a minute later with doubled force. It was a miracle I managed to hold back the need to retch again like the night before.

The wrong decision and I would have killed my wife. I would have murdered my beloved Padmè. That's what the Force was trying to tell me with those dreams. That if I kept going down that path I would have ruined my life, not to mention the life of those of I cared about.

My legs gave away and I sag on my knees like a spineless Hutt. It was too much. Too much to take in so fast. Unable to control myself anymore, I burst into a desperate cry, tears mixing with the rain on my face as I screamed my pain out loud enough to alert any being equipped with functioning ears.

It couldn't be. That dream was so...real! That was me! Me eight years before. On Mustafar...I was the Sith! I was Darth Vader, I felt like him, I felt his...no, my thoughts as if I was really a Sith. I was twisted, evil...a Sith. There were no other words to describe what I could have become. I saw machinations where there were none, my hands were dirty with the blood of the younglings and other Jedi at the Temple, not to mention the Federation heads. I was a ruthless murderer...and I was choking my own wife to death. I was killing her for helping me. Because she wanted the man she loved back.

It couldn't be. I never thought that I could have been the one who would fulfill my dream. I had always thought it would have been someone else, instead...it was me. I couldn't take it anymore. Silently, I fell on the grass, I barely had the mental strength to turn on my back.

For a minute or two, or maybe a whole hour I don't know, I lay there on the ground, motionless, letting the rain wash away the shame. I knew the others were there on the threshold, waiting for me to say something, but I couldn't. I felt too ashamed even to speak to them. I was a monster in potentiality. I had all the cards to become Darth Vader. I had them eight years ago and I still had them, I knew it. Sidious was just waiting for me to make a step in the wrong direction and he would have tried to drag me to the Dark Side again. Apparently it was my destiny.

"It can't be..." I moaned at some point. I was drenched to the bone, shivering and still I lay there. I had lost control of my own will. I didn't want to move from there. A part of me wanted to die. There and then, and be forever forgotten, deleted from the face of the galaxy.

It was then that Dakk and Haron walked beside me and pulled me up, one each arm, and dragged me inside. Jag was already there with a thick towel and wrapped me up in it, before pulling a chair near the heater and pushing me down on it. If the previews night I had been a wreck, well, now I was worse than that. I was a depressed wreck with a bad hangover and a damn panic attack just occurred. Fantastic. I resembled more a corpse than a man. Well, in that moment I didn't really feel like a man. At least not a thirty years old man, more or like I felt as old as Master Yoda. And depressed.

I just stood there, shivering, letting them taking off of me my soaked clothes and replacing them with clean and warm ones. They kept changing the towels once they were drenched and they dried me up to the point I wasn't shivering anymore. After that, they replaced the towels with a thick wooly blanket and then waited for me to give them I sign I was alive.

It was Dakk who broke the silence.

"You had another nightmare, didn't you?" he asked.

I nodded. I didn't want to answer.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No..." I whispered.

They exchanged a meaningful look. "You know it would make you feel better?"

"No, it wouldn't. I'd panic again..." I wasn't really up for complex thoughts.

He sighed, kneeling in front of me so I could see him even if I kept looking that the floor. "Anakin...you can't go on like this! Look what happened yesterday! You'll kill yourself if you keep it up like this!"

"I would be better..."

"What? It would be better if you die? Don't be stupid Anakin! You can't think something like that! What about your kids?"

I sighed. "If you knew what I saw tonight you would think the same, believe me."

"Then tell us. Only then we'll judge. Don't worry Anakin..."

Finally I dared to move, lifting my head so I could look at them. "Are you sure? I don't even know where to begin!"

"Why don't you start from the beginning? Come on..." he grabbed my hand and pulled me until I was standing, shaking but standing, then headed towards the table "Let's get something warm in your stomach..."

So, three cups of coffee and a couple of painkillers for my headache after they knew the story. Not in the details, there were still some parts of it I wanted to keep for myself. Moments like the aftermath of my mother's death, my rather frequent meetings with Vader while in prison...stuff like that, I kept them for me. And of course some very private moments I wouldn't share with anyone but my wife. Except for them, they knew everything they needed to understand while I panicked that night, and why I had so many terrible nightmares during those months with them.

I wasn't such a great storyteller, but even if I tended to repeat myself rather often, they seemed to enjoy it, as if they watching an action movie. During some parts, such as the first Battle of Geonosis, the Battle of Coruscant and the fight with Dooku, I could tell they were really tensed, as if they were sensing my own feelings about those memories. Dakk was one of the more eager listener. That boy was so terribly naïve sometimes...I really cared about him, greatly.

"...so, when I dreamed about my wife's death I started panicking, I couldn't think of anything but that and...well, I turned to the wrong man to ask for help. Thank the Force I realized soon enough my mistake and I ended up in prison for seven years." I was almost at the end of my tale. "Since then, that dream never occurred again, until tonight, when I saw what would have happened, and I panicked!"

They didn't say anything. They didn't interrupt. It was only in the end that they stared at me for a moment, as I had finished to confess to them the subject of my vision, then they all took a deep breath. It was Haron who broke the silence that had fallen on us.

"Anakin I...I don't really know what to say. If this is what happened, I can't really believe you're still here!" he said. "I would have gone crazy a week after being locked up!"

"I clung to the hope to see her again. Without her I'm nothing...I can't think of my life without her." I took a deep breath, the steam from the fourth cup of coffee filled my nostrils, sending a wave of warmth down my throat. I had never been a coffee addicted but I admit I found out it was good waking up with something warm. And strong. Ution's coffee is strong enough to raise the dead from their coffins! "That's why I didn't go crazy. I'm far too human to let go something like this."

"I would do the same if I were you." said Dakk. "I mean, I'm not a father but if someone would prevent me from being with my wife and my children, well, I would surely fight back!"

"I..." I shivered for a moment, a rebound from my recent cold shower. "I only wish I could turn back and change the course of what happened. I know that the years in prison softened some sides of my character, now I don't get angry so often like ten years ago but...I missed all those moments a father should assist to. I wasn't there to help Padmè when she needed me, and I know for sure that my Master hasn't been helping much, he doesn't like to take care of kids."

"So you're wife is with Master Kenobi..."

I nodded. "Yep. I asked him to take care of them before I let them arrest me. I promised I would be back as soon as I could but...with that bounty on my head I can't just wander around the galaxy asking questions! Darrick's been doing the dirty job for me but...seems like Senator Organa is keeping them well hidden and won't reveal their location to anyone."

"So basically you've never seen them..." said Haron.

I shook my head. "No. I have a couple of holos but nothing more. And they're even rather old, the most recent was is two years old. Damn, they will turn eight in three months...time seems to fly now that I'm out of prison."

Silence fell again the room. It was still early, most of the other men were still asleep and around me there was the usual gang plus Matt, who couldn't really believe his ears when I started telling my story. He was dumbstruck for most of the time, some of his expressions were really funny in the end.

"What are you going to do now?" he asked at some point.

"I don't know. I'm tired of waiting here but I can't go anywhere without some support. And I can't ask Darrick to change my occupation so suddenly. Damn, I feel like they're slipping slowly from my reach every moment that passes."

"Anakin I..." started Haron. "If there's something I can do to help you..."

I shook my head. "No Haron, thanks a lot but no, it's something I really have to do alone." I replied. "It might take a long time, but I have to do it alone."

He was about to say something but the comlink chirped loudly and distracted him. It was Darrick. His image appeared on the holostation, he didn't seem calm, at all. He kept looking behind his shoulder, his voice was strange, a bit edgy. Something was worrying him.

"Guys pack your things we're gonna pick you up and move you to Dantooine for the active training." he said quite fast, as if he was in a hurry.

"What?" we all asked together, rather shocked by the news.

"You're gonna be moved to Dantooine and take a short but intense course of piloting. We have decided to start a real offensive against the Empire." the communication was a bit disturbed, there were statics here and there, as if it had been hurriedly encoded with a really old encrypt key. "We don't have enough pilots so those who are able enough to drive a landspeeder will be taught combat piloting in the next few months. Be ready because we'll be there tomorrow morning."

"Do we have to inform Kett?" asked Haron.

"No, he's already on his way to Dantooine. Don't worry. Just pack your things and wait for us." he looked over his shoulder for a moment. "I have to go. See you in tomorrow guys!"

His image disappeared and we were left there, stunned by the news.

"What did you say? You can't ask him to move you to another occupation so fast?" mocked Jag.

He managed to make me smile. "Hey, I can't control what others decide!" I said, almost laughing.

"Well, it seems like you'll have your chance to start asking question around!"

I took the last sip of coffee from my cup and sighed. "We'll see."

Suddenly I felt a wave of optimism wash over me. Dantooine. At least it was a planet. A small one, but a planet. And from what we had heard, they had been building a base on Dantooine, a real one, with structures adapt to host a training ground for pilots and soldiers. At least that was what Darrick had told me the last time we had spoken. That meant that probably Ahsoka would be there, and maybe she knew something.

Yes, for the first time in months, I saw the light in the end of the tunnel.


	23. Something More Than This

Soon after Darrick's call, I made the others swear they would help me holding on my cover. I didn't want to start using my real name so soon. It would have been dangerous. I was far too famous the be forgotten only because the Empire wanted me to be. They couldn't erase the memories of people as they had done with registries, newspapers and holonet archives. People still talked about me, I knew that. Every time there was a discussion about the battles and warships of the Clone Wars, my name popped up. I was used as a term of paragon for almost everything. Thank the Force they didn't use me as a paragon for my human behavior, at least that. By the way, even if they didn't comprehend my request, they accepted it and didn't ask too many questions. Still, all of those who had assisted to my burnout looked at me with other eyes. Before that night I had been a very good mechanic, but that night they saw the man behind the myth they kept talking about even after eight years I had disappeared.

They saw a broken man actually. And emphatically, they decided to leave it up to me. I had to resolve that mess all by myself, and they understood it.

Some says that life can only be what I amn can make it. And I had made my life a real hell. And that hell I was living in was a way to pay the toll for all my mistakes. Thirteen years worth of mistakes, of anger and of egoism. That was my own personal way to make amend.

Strange way, isn't it? I realized it only years later, but it was a journey that started in the moment I decided to resign to the Emperor and they locked me up in prison and it ended about a year later. It was a journey I had to make alone, and it dulled some of the edges of my character. For the better, fortunately. I wasn't the angry young boy that always wanted more than what life gave him. I was a man who wanted only one thing. And that would have been enough for the rest of his life.

By the way, let's get back to the present. I don't really think all my personal reflexions about my own life are that interesting. I myself find that a bit boring in the end.

Right after we received the call, we woke the others up and rushed to prepare our things. We all looked like a bunch of hysterical girls before a night out in town. We had barely twenty four hours to get ready to leave Dxun and too many things to take away. We had to decide what to take and what to leave there. Haron tried to seize the situation and get the others to stay calm and follow some instructions, but no such luck. He was a great mechanic and team leader but in matters of commanding a crowd of men that were all looking forward to leave that godforsaken place, well, he wasn't that skilled. Sighing heavily, he looked at me as I was emptying my closet and packing my things. His expression pleaded for help. It was time for some showing off!

"All right guys stop here and now for a moment!" I shouted as if I was speaking to a clone squad. "I know you want to get away from here but we won't get anywhere if you don't calm down. Now, I want all of you to pack your things and move your bags there in the corner, then we'll decide what to do."

For a moment they looked at me as if the had seen something insane, then finally got back to work, this time more calmly and orderly.

Releasing a deep breath, Haron mouthed a "Thank you." then got back to work, as I did. We resumed our work and when we had finished with the packing we prepared the repaired aircraft we thought could have been useful for transport. By the end of the day we received a call informing us that the morning after they would pick us up only, that those ships would have remained there in stock for the near future. We all wished they had told us before, but it's useless crying over spilled bluemilk, so we just put the ships back in the hangar, and closed it, changing the password just in case.

Basically I was in charge of organizing the leave for the whole day since Haron didn't know how to control us, earning some compliments too for my commanding attitude. At some point, as I was trying to figure out a sufficiently hidden place to make the freight that should have picked us up land, Ution said something close to "You're something more than a mechanic Atton, you're a natural born leader!" If only they knew...

If organizing the leaving was a rather easy task, getting to Dantooine though was all another matter. It took more than what we had planned. Someone on the freight inserted the wrong coordinates in the transport ship navicomputer and the cargo that should have picked us up landed in the wrong place, almost six miles south of the camp, and we had to walk to the ship. Well, it took a long time, not to mention that it had rained all the day and night before, so after a six miles long walk we were soaked in mud up to our knees. The guys from the crew of the freight weren't too happy about our footprints all over the ship floors.

We left the Mandalorian camp pretty much as they had found it. All the repairs and changes we had made would crumble again by the action of the continuous rain and the attacks of the animals in a couple of years, so we weren't that worried. And, let's be serious, that place was a total living hell, secluded but harsh, too harsh for living there. That's why the Mandalorian used it as a refuge. I doubt the Empire would even think of looking on Dxun for Rebel bases. Seriously, I doubt they even knew Dxun existed!

In the end, we arrived on Dantooine to discover that the famous base was actually a farm with a maze of tunnels and rooms underneath it. The farm was a cover up for the real place.

And it was huge.

I mean, the Mandalorian base on Dxun was big. More space than any man can ask for, plenty of room for the storage of the ships we repaired and basically a whole jungle with no one inhabiting it other than yourself at your disposition. It was a harsh place to live in, as I already said, but at least it was safe, secluded and the Empire had no presence up there.

The base on Dantooine was at least ten times as big as the one on Dxun. Probably more. As we descended on a rather spacious lift, we could see all the different levels of it. Ten levels in total, each one had a specific function. One was a sort of house, with the dorm rooms for the single people and small but comfortable private units for the families, common rooms and other stuff that made life a bit easier. That was the lowest level. There was one that worked as a training ground for soldiers, another one was a sort of factory for I didn't know what kind of things – later I discovered it was a research facility for weaponry and other stuff, sort of what we had been doing on Dxun – and there was one whole level that served as refectory for all the inhabitants of the base.

It was huge. Period.

People worked even on the surface, producing everything they needed to survive, from food to water to anything else that could have been used in a base as big as that. It was a small town in the end, and I fear it was even bigger than Mos Espa. Well, at least that was the feeling.

One of those who had been living there for rather a long time took us to a short instructive tour of the base. He showed us the main training grounds, the refectory and then led us to our dorm room. The dormitories were structured in different rooms with spartan bunk beds in each one, closets for everyone and a tiny but functional bathroom for every room. A long corridor crossed the whole floor from the entrance to the area of the level utilized by families and doors opened on either sides of the corridor.

Our guide, a short middle aged man whom I forgot the name, opened a door and scrolling names on a datapad started calling our names in alphabetic order. They had already assigned the places. I was one of the last called, with Dakk, Jag and Haron.

Well, the room was small, but in the end we would have used it only at night. For the most of the day we would have been on other levels. This time, considering what had happened just a day before, I took the lower bunk, with Jag taking the top one.

Our guide left a datapad with a map of the base, timetables for meals and activities and the recommendation to be on time next morning for the first training session, details were on the pad, then we were left arranging our things.

"Do you think it will take much time to become a pilot?" asked Haron while moving his clothes from his bag to his closet.

Obviously, all of them looked at me. "Hey, I never took a lesson! I don't know, I just started with podracing when I was a kid!" I said defensively. That was true, I never took a single flying lesson. It was a natural talent.

"But you must have studied at least the basics of flying a warship!" said Dakk while pulling himself up on his bunk. "You landed the Invisible Hand, you must know at least what buttons push when it's time!"

"Half of the Invisible Hand." I corrected. "And well, yes, I know the basics, but I'm not a professional pilot. Some lessons could only do good to me."

While I put my clothes in the closet I grasped the hilt of my lightsaber and pulled it out of my bag. For a moment, my mind drifted back to the Wars, when that apparently harmless metallic tube was the natural extension of arm. With some luck I would have found the time for some more exercise in the next few months.

"Hey Anakin, what's that?"

Dakk pulled me away from my thoughts. "This?" I lifted my hand. "This is my lightsaber."

They all stopped what they were doing. "Really?"

"Yes. This thing saved my life so many times I can't even count them. It might sound strange but I miss those times when I was a Padawan and me and Darrick spent days sparring."

"Eh, I had the feeling you knew Master Kohr far better than what you tried to show." smiled Haron. "You two looked too close to be only Jedi and mechanic!"

I nodded as I sat down on my bed. I stared at my weapon for a moment, its chromed, smooth surface glistening in the white artificial light of the room. That weapon was my life. Indeed. And I missed it. I had been a warrior for so long that the philosophy of fighting was deep eradicated in my soul. And now that the Galaxy needed warriors I had to hold back and wait. We had to wait. All the Jedi that survived had to hold back and wait. It wasn't fair. At all.

"I know. We're not actors in the end."

"What are we going to do?" asked Jag.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know. We're gonna wait and see what they say. Then we'll see what to do."

Later that evening after dinner we had the chance to wander around the place and see some of its levels. It took us almost an hour just to see the level utilized as a recreational space. It was like our common room but bigger and with a huge library. It was awesome.

The others weren't that interested but I wanted to see the training facility, so they accompanied me. At that time it was empty, so we had all the time to see it.

There were a shooting range, a hand to hand combat training space, training machines and more things I don't want to bore you with. Let's just say that it wasn't so much different from the training spaces we had at the Temple minus the lightsaber sparring rooms.

"Woah, I've never seen anything like this!" said Dakk at some point.

"I can bet it's Darrick's and Aleha's doing. It just looks like the places we trained when we were Padawans!" I replied, looking around.

"Really?"

I nodded. "Yep! You know, even if a Jedi has the Force as a help, you can't just fight without the proper physical training. I spent years of my teenage doing weight-lift and other stuff just to being able to fight with a lightsaber. The weapon might be almost weightless, but you need a great deal of strength to use it properly." I explained.

"I can bet. I've never seen a Jedi fighting but I saw something on the holonews, you all seemed so skilled with those sabers, I can't believe there's people able to move that fast!" he said wandering around the place.

"I couldn't believe it myself before I saw what Master Kenobi could do, one of the first times we were out on a mission as Master and Padawan. And when I saw Master Yoda fighting Dooku on Geonosis, I almost couldn't believe my eyes. I've never seen anyone moving at that speed. I thought it was the pain from my arm that made me see things that weren't there." I dug my hands in my pockets and looked at the far end of the shooting range. Suddenly I felt the urge to jump over the protection wall and ask them to shoot at me, so I could practice a bit of blaster deflection. Well, maybe in the next few days I would have asked, but not now. We were just exploring the place.

Well, after we realized we couldn't do much at the moment, we went to the flying training place, on level four. Let's just say that I did know what to expect, but the others didn't. There were at least ten flight simulator cabins lined on the left wall, a holographic station for educational purposes, usually used for strategy lessons or to show where and when people made mistakes in the simulator.

"I can't believe we're about to become pilots!" sighed Dakk leaning on a wall.

"Believe it or not, be prepared because it's a hard life." I replied looking at the list of simulation available on the computer. It was a rather large list with some interesting simulations. It would have been fun. "Being a pilot it's something more than sitting in the cockpit and making the ship fly."

"I don't care. It's something I've always dreamed of. Every kid dreams to be a pilot after all!"

I laughed for a moment. "Don't tell me. I know the feeling."

Later that night we were still hanging around in the dormitories, all prepped up for bed but still walking around going from room to room and chatting with the others that were on the base. We met new people, like those who slept in the room beside ours. They all seemed nice pals, even if many of them didn't really know what to expect from the training. It seemed like they had waited for us to start, so tomorrow would have been the first day for everyone, me included.

Well, we must have been a bit too loud because at some points the door of the lift opened and a cloaked figure slowly walked down the corridor. I recognized her presence from the moment the doors opened. Aleha Kohr. One of the toughest girls the galaxy could count. Slightly shorter than her brother, she seemed almost frail, like a branch of dry wood. But if you had seen her on the battlefield, well, she would look anything but frail. Concentrated, resolute, agile...she was extremely gifted in sword fighting, a hard adversary, I can assure you. Even in that moment, her countenance was almost royal. She was a proud Jedi, but not like Obi-Wan or her brother. She didn't strictly follow the rules, just like me. Sometimes we had to bend them in order to get our ass home safely. And believe me, considering that she was an extremely well trained body guard, one that was continuously requested for protection for high risk personalities, she had to bend and break many rules against her own will.

"So, pilots, what's this ruckus? You should all be in your rooms, possibly sleeping. You have a long day ahead, you know it." she said, her voice terribly harsh. Then she turned towards me. "Most of all you Rosh, you should be in your bunk sleeping, considering how you get excited around ships!"

Thank the Force Darrick had warned her. "Master Kohr, still as corrosive as ever." I slowly bowed in front of her, respectfully. "It's been eight years but you haven't lost your touch!"

"And I don't plan to. My brother is already soft enough. With twenty little younglings to train, I have to be something more than corrosive to make them follow me. You know that?"

"I can imagine." I was about to burst into laugh in front of everyone and I could see, by the look in her eyes, that she was about to do the same. We had to cut short that little scene or we would start jumping around the place recalling old memories of our apprenticeship at the Temple.

She knew that too, so we cut it short. "Very well, Rosh. Don't corrupt these men though, as you did with Darrick. I want all of you in your rooms by the time I set foot on the lift. No exceptions of course. Try to get some sleep and tomorrow Captain Raymus Antilles will start your training. Now, in your bunks. And I mean it!"

It was obvious that we all obeyed and rushed to our rooms. Aleha turned on her heels and by the time she had reached the lift we were all in our rooms. Of course chatting went on till late hour but finally we managed to fall asleep. It took me some more time to fall asleep but in the end I managed to get some hours of troubled sleep.

Next morning, when we woke up, we had to suffer Dakk's excitement. During breakfast he couldn't stop talking about what we would have done that day, that he wanted to try one of the simulations and other stuff. Unfortunately for him, our first training session was merely a briefing on what we would have done in the next few months and a list of requirements that pilots needed to achieve. One of them was an athletic physical shape that many of them didn't even know they could get.

From my point of observation, in the corner of the training room, I couldn't see the faces of the men in front of me but I could feel the radical change in their feelings. And they thought that the life of a war pilot was simply sitting in the cockpit and move the cloche. Like hell it was! It was a matter of hard work in the gym, a lot of training and whatever. And I had warned them that it was a hard life!

Soon after this revelation, Captain Antilles started our first training session. And it was hard enough to wear out a full trained soldier. Many of the guys around me dropped out after half of the designed time, but the few that arrived at the end of the training session earned the respect of those who didn't and those who trained us. It wasn't only Captain Antilles, but there were three others men and a woman who led the four groups we had been divided into, and I was in the toughest one. And it felt good.

The few times I had the chance to exercise while on Dxun gave me the chance to regain some of my shape, but that kind of intensive training was what I needed to be fully functioning as I was eight years before. And I was one of the few that managed to finish the session, and I wasn't even breathing heavy!

I was the only one that managed to stand in the end, while all the others were all trying to catch their breath laying on the floor, exhausted.

"Well done!" shouted Captain Antilles as he saw that I was the last man standing. "You'll do a great pilot!" At that I thought  _Thanks for nothing Captain, I already know that!_  "You are..."

"Atton Rosh." I said. "Thank you sir..."

"Good. Nice to meet you. Have you ever had an intense training like this?" he asked.

I threw a quick glance to Dakk, who was trying to start breathing normally again. He was about to burst into laugh at that question. "No sir never. But I guess my job as a mechanic required some stamina!"

"You where one of those on Dxun?" I nodded. "Good. You did a fantastic job with that X-Wing. Incom should deliver the first few ships in a month."

"Great. I guess now it's time for some flying theory..."

"Yes Rosh, it's time for some theory. You'll have a great teacher, I can assure you."

We waited until everyone was able to breath normally and stand up straight he led us to the level designed for the flight theory lessons. Always walking in the end of the line I managed to remain hidden behind the others sixty men and women in front of me, but even if I was rather far and I didn't have a clear vision of those in front of the little mob, I could clearly see the well-known striped head of my former Padawan, now a Jedi Knight herself, talking briefly to Captain Antilles, her face was a mask of tenacity, the same she showed every day she lived under my tutelage.

She had grown. She was just a teenager when I met her first, almost ten years before, and now she was a full grown woman. I smiled for a moment. She was fine. It was good to know that at least she made it through the last eight years.

After all that happened, all she had to stand while I kept pushing her limits and her patience, she deserved something more than being just a Jedi. Despite her youth, she was a tough and hard to bend woman, someone you could rely on in every aspect of your life. I would put my life in her hands while on a mission. I had been her tutor, and now she was my teacher. The roles had reversed.

You never stop learning, someone said years ago. Now she was gonna be the one to teach, and I the one to learn. And I was sure that I would have learned something more than just being a better pilot than what I already was.

Yes, I was going to learn something more than this.


	24. Aces High

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who wanted Ahsoka, here she is.

For three weeks the training regime went on. Every day we were underwent through some really though workout sessions then some flying theory lessons.

Ahsoka was just an awesome teacher. She really knew her job. Her ability as a pilot was just astounding, she had become really a great pilot and she knew how to teach. I was one of those who always sat in the back of the class, listening but never concentrating too much on what she said but I managed to learn some things I didn't know about thrusters and new evasive moves.

Ahsoka was clear and simple, even those who never saw a cloche quickly gathered the basis and could start the simulations and succeed rather easily. The lessons were structured mainly for those who needed more training. There were three or four other men that actually knew how to fly a single seat ship, but I didn't really know if there were other war pilots other than me and Ahsoka in that room. Some knew how to fly a cargo ships, other never even rode a bike but they were learning quickly.

Dakk was one of those who learned quicker than the others. I saw his progressions in the flight simulator. He was almost ready to start the real lessons with a real ship. We were just waiting for Incom to ship the first few X-Wing so we could fly for real.

On the other hand, if the others managed to learn the theory quite fast, the physical workout was still a pain the ass of many of them. Even after two weeks, I was the only one that in the end of the session could stand. And after the flying lesson I still had the strength for an extra session all by my self. Sometimes Dakk and Haron would join, even if most of the time it was only for keeping me company.

But the fact that I was the only one that managed to stand up on his feet after the workout provoked some envy in some of the younger men. I mean, I was a thirty years old man with a dark past behind that never talked about it and the physical shape of a man twenty years younger that spent half of his day at the gym. I had a stamina I didn't really remember, I thought I had lost all my resistance in prison. It seemed that the torture sessions helped me someways. I could hold on more than those men that really spent half of their life at the gym and they hated that. They were younger and more trained than me, still they were exhausted in the end. That envy got me some problems in the near future, I have to admit it, even though I wasn't the one looking for a fight.

By the way, one day Ahsoka was explaining some emergency procedures about landing with a damaged ship, and something she said caught my attention.

"...and if unfortunately your engines are so damaged you can't even use them or they would explode or if there is a failure of the energy system, you'll need to stabilize your ship manually using some very important instruments that are installed in every ships."

One of the men in the front rows lifted his hand, asking permission to speak. Ahsoka promptly allowed him.

"Can't we just stop and wait for help?" he asked.

"Not if you're in the atmosphere of a planet, but if you're in open space it's the best thing to do." I thought. Or at least I thought I had expressed the phrase only in my head but I actually said it loud enough to be heard even in the front rows.

"Who was that?" asked Ahsoka, surveying the class in front of her.

 _Damn_. I thought. I stood up. "It was me."

"And you are?"

"Atton Rosh." I replied, calm.

"Do you have any experience with broken engines?"

 _Crappy question, Padawan..._ "In fact I do. I had my good fare of emergency landing in the past." I replied quietly.

She squinted her eyes for a moment, as if she had recognized me. For a moment I thought she would actually recognize me. Fortunately she didn't. The fact that I still wore a long beard (that needed to be trimmed in those days but I didn't have much time) helped a lot with camouflage. "What kind of emergency landings?" She asked, a strange look in her eyes.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Nothing too bad. Small cargo ships with normal break downs. Unfortunately sometimes it happens. Once I had to land a freight damaged by blaster cannons."

Her face became a mask I couldn't decrypt. She seemed both interested in me and somehow mistrustful. "Blaster cannons? You were a pilot during the Wars?"

"No Master Tano, I'm just a mechanic. And by the way, if I'm not wrong, most of the single seated war ships don't have those instruments you were talking about earlier. Drag fins and emergency flaps are exclusively mounted on high end transport ships, war cruisers and some cargos." Well, at least our prototype of the X-Wing didn't have them. We didn't have the time nor the knowledge to build them.

"True, but there are other maneuvers and ways to achieve enough stability necessary to land safely even with a damaged ship." she replied, almost taunting me.

That made me laugh. I mean, single seated ships, like most of the war ships and starfighters, weren't designed to land safely after a significant damage. They were designed to be expendables after all. It's like trying to navigate the rapids of the rivers of Naboo with a paper boat. Impossible.

"What maneuvers? I mean, I know there are ways to get your ass on safe land while on a class C ship but there's no way you can get a single seated ship to land without an engine!" Of that I was sure. I mean, I had been a pilot for half of mi life!

"What makes you think so?" she taunted me again.

Hey, she might even have grown up, but damn it! She was as headstrong as I remembered. I folded my arms across my chest, as I always did when we were arguing back in the days of the war. "Experience. As a mechanic I know for sure that a damaged starfighter cannot stand the pressure building during a land through any atmosphere. A cruiser, maybe. Not a X-Wing or anything close to that class. I doubt even the best Jedi Ace could do it!" and with that I was talking about myself.

I must have touched a soft spot at that point. She flinched visibly, her smart ass expression wiped away from her face, her blue eyes shot down to the ground. But that was only a moment, she gathered her countenance back in a split second. "What would you do then?"

Well, as usual, I would improvise. "I don't know." I simply said. "It depends on the situation."

"Why don't you try our simulations?"

"Why not. It might be interesting!"

She nodded. "Good. Get in simulation cabin 2, and we'll see what you would do!"

All the others started murmuring and whispering as I walked towards the simulator. I know what they were thinking. I knew they thought I was crazy, challenging a Jedi so openly, it could only get me some nasty pains. As I climbed in the cockpit, I glanced at Ahsoka, who was fumbling with the keys of the main computer. "Master Tano, load up the hardest simulation you have." I said.

She looked up from the keyboard. "The hardest, or the impossible?" she asked.

"What's the impossible?"

"The landing of the Invisible Hand." she replied, somehow matter of factly.

Suddenly I smiled, wickedly. "The real one or just a replica?"

"We programmed it based on the data contained in an astromech droid who was actually on the ship. We even have a record of the voices of the pilots." she said, pushing a couple of buttons until the console beeped, signaling the program was booting up. "You'll hear and see the same things the pilots head and saw that day."

"Fantastic. See ya in a minute!"

"The whole simulation is ten minutes long. It starts from the moment all escape pods are launched and ends when the cruiser lands in one of the industrial zones of Coruscant."

"Yeah, I know the story. It splits in half when the stabilizers break down and Skywalker had to glide it to the ground. I know I know!" I repeated as I sat down on the seat of the simulator.

The intern was shaped like the usual starfighter cockpit. The shields on the right, two cloches, on the right one there's the trigger for the armaments, the left one mainly served as a stabilizer for the route. Instead of a duraglass coverage, there were three high-definition screens that would have projected the images. I had never had the chance to use a flight simulator like that, I learned how to fly on the flied, using my past record of pod-racing as a base training. That thing was a jewel for the training of pilots, all Clone Pilots trained with those kinds of devices. Now it was my turn.

"Well..." she started, her voice came through the comlink inside the cockpit. "Since you know the story, I guess it's time to start it up!" she was damn sure I would fail it. I knew it.

The screens lit up and the view of Coruscant from its atmosphere opened in front of my eyes, just as I remembered it. Scraps of metal, ships wrecked by blaster cannons and ion turrets, fires blazing on the surface of the planet. And the feeling I got from that view was the same, even after eight years. The same, dreadful feeling of impeding death was on my head, most of all because that view recalled the memories of Sidious' betrayal, and most of all, because that day was marked in my mind as the beginning of the end. The end of my life as I knew it. It was the same day Padmè had told me I would have become a father in a few months, but it was also the day when the downfall towards the termination of the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic, not to mention my own seven years of prison.

The simulator started rolling and vibrating like it was about to break.

" _All escape pods have been launched!_ " I heard myself say from nowhere.

" _Greivous_." This one was Obi-Wan's voice. " _Can you fly a cruiser like this?_ "

Damn they had downloaded everything recorded in Artoo's memory, even the vocal recordings!

" _You mean, do I know how to land what's left of this thing?_ " I repeated, covering my own voice from the comlink as I started the improvised landing procedure I had pretty much created that day.

"Everything alright in there Rosh?" asked Ahsoka.

"Sure Master, everything's just fine." I said as I found the controls of the drag fins. I had to activate them at the right time.

I heard Artoo's beeping electronic voice muttering something in the background before Obi-Wan spoke again. "Well?"

" _Under the circumstances, I'd say the ability to pilot this thing is irrelevant. Strap yourselves in._ " I didn't really know that my own voice could sound so disturbing coming from an electronic device. It just sounded strange. I had replayed that scene in my head so many times that I could write it down as a script myself but reliving it for real, transmuted into a didactic simulation marked as the new limit of impossible, well, that was totally another matter.

Now the real work started. I heard the same cracking noises I heard that day, and I admit that it made my skin crawl a couple of times, even though I knew it was only fake.

" _Steady... Attitude... eighteen degrees..._ " said Obi-Wan, the Artoo beeped his confirm. Then the stabilizers broke, and the cruiser started tilting a bit.

" _Pressure rising. We've got to slow this wreck down. Open all hatches, extend all flaps, and drag fins."_  I said, again covering the recording. Pushing the three buttons correspondent to the three actions I had ordered that day, I felt like I was in a dream. No, better, a nightmare. It was one of the few occasions in my life that I had really feared I would have died trying to save someone's else life.

"Are you sure you're alright?" asked again Ahsoka from the outside. Her voice showed she was suspicious about me, and I could feel it through the Force.

"Yes Snips don't worry I've got everything under control!" I said. "Three, two, one..."

I pulled a lever and the cockpit swerved from left to right a couple of times, mimicking the moment the ship broke in half.

" _We lost something!_ " this time I only mouthed it, letting the recordings clear for the others to hear.

" _Not to worry, we're still flying half a ship!_ " that smart reply, heard in a safe environment like that one, made me laugh, hard. Obi-Wan's humor had always been rather dark and in that moment it was just funny.

Well, it's useless to mention that I was practically acting on instinct that day, but in that moment I knew what to do and when to do it right. As the time passed and the simulation went on, I practically repeated the same movements and procedures I made that day. I was carrying it down even better than I had done eight years before. Somehow it seemed easier. At a certain point a red light flashed in front of me, just as the same time I heard the records of my Master's voice announcing that we were in the atmosphere.

"Now starts the rough part!" said Ahsoka from the outside.

"I know!" I groaned as I pulled the cloche up and tilted the half of the ship that remained up, slowing it down but at the same time forcing the heat shields to work harder. As I remembered, they didn't last long. We were approaching the landing strip in one of the industrial zones of Coruscant rather quickly, I didn't really remembered that landing to last ten minutes. It seemed less than one that day!

Another red light flashed. The ship had reached the critical temperature. It was getting closer and closer to fifteen thousands degrees, the melting temperature of durasteel. That wasn't good.

" _Fireships on left and right!_ " said Obi-Wan.

It was in that moment that I pulled the steering lever towards me and the underside of the ship touched the ground with a loud crack then it started sliding on the metallic pavement, making strange high pitched screeches. On my left I saw the control tower we had destroyed coming closer and I couldn't do anything to avoid the collision. I just braced myself as the remains of the simulated cruiser slid shaking on the landing platform. The collision, even though it was just fake, was replayed realistically by the simulator, making me jump a bit on the seat.

Soon after the collision with the control tower, the wreck slowed down and came to an alt, fortunately without any more damages except for the whole ship being practically destroyed and a whole landing strip completely useless until they would repair it. Which it meant lots of money that I bet the Republic didn't have, at least at that time.

On the screens in front of my eyes the view of Coruscant was replaced by a black screen with a white writing saying:  _Simulation Completed Successfully_ , and the door of flight simulator opened. I unlocked the safety belt and jumped out of it, an unreal silence filled the room as the whole stunned class looked at me in sheer wonder. Among them there was a short, sturdy guy who was shaking his head, a not that friendly look on his face. Apparently they couldn't believe what I had just done. Just like Ahsoka. I was still standing with a foot inside the cockpit when a thundering applause came out of nothing.

"I guess we can say that a ship can actually and without engines and stabilizers them, Rosh." she said above the noise.

"That was a lucky ending to a very crucial situation, Master Tano. I bet that even Skywalker considered himself damn lucky to survive the landing!" I replied. "Unfortunately, I doubt that anyone, even with the best piloting background, could ever survive the landing of a single seated warship without stabilizers and engines. This is a very peculiar situation, but there's no way you can get your ass safe and sound in the same occasion without a ship of that class." With that said I jumped to the ground.

"He's right Master Tano." said one of those among the small crowd. "You would need some very powerful heat shields to survive, and our ships don't have them."

"The best you can do is finding a quiet place to get into the orbit and wait for help." I said. "Or you can try to land, but pray the Force for some luck, or you'll end up fried up like a short circuited vaporator."

She looked at us for a moment. Experience defeated hope. It was a bit sad but we were right. That day I managed to carry the Invisivle Hand down because I was lucky, and because the ship had the right shields and devices. If I had an ARC-170 or a Delta 7, even my Delta 7, that day I would have become part of the Coruscant atmosphere.

"Alright. I guess this lesson is over now. You can go and get some rest. Be careful because in the next few days we'll start the real training."

I was about to leave the room with the others when I felt something stopping me. It was Ahsoka, she was pulling me from the group, using the Force. At that point I turned, folding my arms across my chest again. "Anything I can do for you Master Tano?" I asked.

"Yes Rosh. How did you call me?"

Strange question. "What?"

"When you were in the simulator cabin, you called me Snips. I know only one man that called me that way, and he disappeared years ago. Now I want to know why did you call me that way."

Busted! I was busted! Once again I had blown my cover like it was nothing! Damn me and my slipping tongue! Crap!

"Master Tano, I can explain everything..." I started before she interrupted me.

"You better be doing that soon, or I swear I'll cut your head off right now! How do you know that name?"

Her hand was dangerously close to her saber, and I didn't really want to see it in action right now. "Ahsoka, listen to me. Just for a moment, put that saber down, you don't really need it. If I called you Snips what does that mean?" I asked, quietly.

"That either you know my Master or that..." her voice trailed off as realization struck her.

"...that I am your Master Ahsoka. I know it can be difficult to understand but I swear I'm not lying."

As quick as ever, she took a step towards me and tilted my face so she could see the scar close to my eye, then her hand launched down to my right arm. She closed her fingers tightly around my forearm and through the thick leather gauntlet felt nothing but a durasteel skeleton and the vibration of the servos and mechanic ligaments that moved my fingers and wrist.

"There's no flesh under that glove Ahsoka." I said as she kept a skeptical eye on me.

"Who cut it?"

"Count Dooku, during the first Battle of Geonosis, about ten years and a couple of months ago." I replied, still as calm as I could ever be. She was armed and I wasn't, I had to make her believe me, or I was a dead man. "Snips, please, believe me."

Her deep blue eyes were fixated on mine, for endless seconds she drew into the Force and examined my tremor in the flow, searching for something known and recognizable. It didn't help me because I knew that somehow my presence in the Force, my own reverberation had changed during the years and little of what any Jedi could feel around me remained. That was the price for growing up. Darrick had told me, right before he set off from Naboo, that hadn't it been for my exterior appearance, because my beard wasn't that long and didn't hide my face completely like in that moment, he wouldn't have recognized me. I wondered how Aleha managed to recognize me that night when she came down to the dorm room and scolded us because we were too loud in our discussions.

Time seemed to stretch until she released my arm and smiled. "You need to shave Master, you don't look too good!"

With that said, she launched forward and hugged me tightly, as I did.

"It's so good to see you Ahsoka!"

"It's good to see you Master...I've missed you so much!"

"Me too Snips!" I wiped a tear from my face. "You can't believe how worried I was when I left you to get to Coruscant!"

"Oh, that was the best thing you could do. It practically saved me from the Purge!" she said, stepping back from me. "Look at you...seems like seven years of prison changed you!"

"They did, fortunately for the better. I'm sorry for earlier, but someone had to interrupt you!"

"Oh that was the meaning of the lesson. Someone had to show up and contradict me, or the whole lesson would have been meaningless!" she said, tugging my arm towards the lift.

"I admit that the idea never even came up to my mind." I said circling her shoulders with my arm. "Come on, you have a lot to tell me!"

She nodded. "You too Master. But, listen, I was going to get to the nearest town for a night out with Darrick and Aleha, just the three of us, a night out with some friends! You can join if you're not tired!"

"I would be honored Snips!" And I really was. "But please, stop calling me Master. I'm Anakin now."

"What's with that Atton Rosh thing?" she asked pushing a button on the lift control panel.

"It's a fake identity. You know, there's a bounty on my head, I didn't want to be questioned too much about my name." I explained.

"It's not that bad, but I mean it, you really need to shave. Or at least trim that beard. It just makes you look older than what you are." she said exiting from the elevator out in the fields. The late afternoon sun was setting, painting the sky with reddish stripes.

"I know, I just don't have so much time. With the workout and the flying lessons..."

She walked towards a flaming red landspeeder, neatly polished as if it just came out of the line of production. "Alright, as long as you promise to trim that thing, I'll stop whining about that. Wanna drive?" she lifted her hand, showing the matching red keys.

She hadn't changed a bit. "You can bet!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: Iron Maiden - Aces High


	25. A Fist Mark In Your Face

**Chapter 25 – A Fist Mark In Your Face**

The ride to the nearest town didn't take too long, and I admit I pushed a bit too much on the accelerator, but that was the first time in years I had the chance to have a landspeeder under my control, and it was fun. It was a open cabin one, just as I liked it, the engine was just new and craved for some speed, I felt it. The response was awesome, not a single whine or hiss from it. Ahsoka had made a wonderful choice when she had purchased it.

We spent half of the run talking about that afternoon lesson. She was pushing us to contradict her, she wanted us to find the flaw in what she was saying, at least that way we would have maintained a certain level of concentration and we would have learned faster. Or something like that.

"You know Master, I've been teaching for a couple of years now and that's the first time someone catches the hint and stops me." she said at a certain time.

"Really?" I couldn't believe it. "It's common knowledge that some ships can't afford to land without engines, I doubted there were people who thought it was possible!" we arrived at a crossroad. "Left or right?"

"Left. I know, I couldn't believe it myself. It seems like the beginners tend to take what you say for granted and sure. It's like they don't pay attention!"

"Well, wait the moment they have a real starfighter under their ass, they'll learn even quicker." I said. The skyline of the small commercial town appeared as we approached. At that speed, ten minutes and we would get there. "Darrick and Aleha?"

"They should already be there. Their tasks ended earlier than our lesson. You know, she's training twenty younglings."

"I know. Darrick told me. He was the one that got me in the Rebellion, when I got out of prison."

"By the way when did you get out?"

"About eight months ago, maybe nine. It was the twins' seventh birthday if I'm not mistaken."

"Nine months then, give or take a few days." she replied.

 _What the..._  "How do you know?"

"I was there for their birthday party. Padmè wanted me to be there. She's been trying to make the kids meet all the people close to their father, so they would learn something more about you, not only from her or Master Kenobi."

Suddenly I pushed the break pedal, literally stopping on our tracks. I gripped the steering wheel so tightly that the knuckles of my fleshy whitened and the ones on my mechanic hand screeched. I was getting angry.

"Master, is everything alright?" she asked, a worried look on her face.

"Yes Snips, I just need a moment to calm down, don't worry." I took a deep breath, concentrating on some happy memories and not on what she had just told me. "Just give me a moment and we'll go."

"Did I say something that..."

"No Ahsoka, no, it's not you I'm angry at. Actually, I'm grateful you could be there for my kids it's just that..." I took another deep breath, this time it worked better. "It's just that I miss them, that's all."

I slowly pushed on the gas, getting us to move again. There were a minute or two of deep silence, filled only by the rumble of the engine.

"I'm sorry Master, I shouldn't have..."

"No Ahsoka, don't be sorry. You had all the rights to tell me about this. And I'm thankful that the twins had the chance to meet you. By the way, do you know..."

She shook her head, anticipating my question. "No Master, I don't know. Master Kenobi keeps them safe and hidden and no one knows where they are. Turn right here Master." She said pointing to a small alley. "Last time I heard from them was for my birthday, two months ago. Alright you can park here."

"How were they?" I asked while I parked the speeder.

"They were fine. Padmè misses you a lot, even though she doesn't want to show it. The twins are in that phase of their life when they are practically geysers of energy, always moving and running like mad. I wonder how they manage to make them sleep at night."

"My mother had the same problems with me when I was their age. I was like a sandstorm, no one could keep me down." we jumped off the speeder and she guided me towards a small door in one of the buildings.

She pushed the door open and entered. It was a small bar, with wooden furnishing and raw stony floors. In the dim light I could count ten small booths and a long counter with stools. It was almost empty, except for a couple of men at the counter and two other customers sitting at one of the booths. I recognized Darrick immediately. When they spotted us, they gestured to sit with them. Of course we did.

"Guess the last lesson proved to be more remunerative than what you expected!" said Aleha as we sat at the booth.

"Guess you're right Aleha." replied Ahsoka. "I just had the chance to get to know this nice fellow a bit better. This one was brave enough to try the Invisible Hand simulation and guess what...he completed it!"

"Easy task Ahsoka. I've been in worse situations!" I replied, laughing.

"Christophsis?" asked Darrick.

"No, Blenjeel."

In that moment a young Twi'lek arrived to take our orders. "What can I get you handsome?" she asked, blinking in my direction.

"Spiced Corellian Ale for me." I said.

"Arborite Twister for me." said Ahsoka. "Make it double."

"Here they come!" she blinked again at me then walked to the counter, preparing our drinks.

"Was she blinking at me?" I asked, a bit awkward.

"Sure she was." replied Aleha. "You're the only one that doesn't look like he's already taken. Or who's a woman. And by the way, when have you started going easy on alcohol?"

For a moment I shook my head and dug my hand in my left pocket. "Since three weeks ago, when I got drunk enough to throw up even my last meal on Tatooine." I picked a small leather sack from it and pulled my wedding ring out. "It was the night before you called and told us we would have been moved here." I said, wearing my ring. "And by the way Ahsoka...Arborite Twister? Isn't it a bit too strong for an empty stomach?"

"It might be for a human, but for me...not a problem."

The barmaid arrived and put our drinks on the table. I guess she spotted my ring because she didn't blink anymore. Thank the Force for small favors.

"And what about Blenjeel?" asked Aleha.

I took a sip from my pint. "I was held prisoner there for seven years. That's where they sent me after they arrested me, the day the Republic became the Empire. Basically, Sidious wanted me to be his new apprentice. He tried to drag me to the Dark Side, using my fear to lose my wife as a leverage..." I was expecting some kind of reaction but no one said anything. I guess they all knew the story. "But somehow I managed to hold on and I didn't turn. But he didn't let me go and got me arrested, and soon after that he gave the Order 66. He had a back up to raise as his new apprentice, and named him Vader. I guess that for once in my life I made the right decision by telling everything to Obi-Wan and letting them take me away. I guess I saved some more lives."

"Who knows." mused Darrick. "Do you have the faintest idea of what would have happened if you had turned?"

I nodded. "I would have become a paranoid murderer, then I would have killed my wife and guess what? I would be in Vader's suit. That's it."

"How do you know?" asked Ahsoka.

"Well, the night I got drunk, three weeks ago, once the others managed to put me in my bunk so I could sleep, I had a dream. Better, a nightmare. I saw what would have happened if I had turned that day. I would have been the one to kill everyone in the Temple, I would have been the one to fly to Mustafar, murder the leaders of the Separatist and the Trade Federation. At that point, Padmè would have come to that Godsforsaken planet, I would have gone completely mad about some stupid details like Obi-Wan knowing about us and whatever and guess what? I would have killed her, just because Obi-Wan had sneaked on her ship without her permission. What a great fucktard I am!"

I let my head fall on the table, hiding my face for a moment, shame coming over me again as everytime I thought about it. Ahsoka put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed it gently. "Master, don't think like that. You made the right choice, you're here and your family is alright. That was just a possibility that didn't come true."

"I feel like the black and white knight!" I mumbled in response, as I stood up straight again.

"Excuse me?" asked Aleha arching her eyebrow.

"The Black and White Knight. It's an old fairy tale that my mother used to tell me when I was a kid. It's the story of three knights, the Red, the Yellow and the Black and White. The Red and the Yellow were valorous fighters, brave, trustworthy and respected. They would set free slaves, right the wrongs of the galaxy, fly huge mythological creatures and they were loved by their people. The Black And White Knight lived in their shadows, always trying to figure out what was better to do, often falling for anger and making wrong decisions. If the others had a strong faith, he had lost it during his journeys, and not to mention that he had embraced a sort of heresy, becoming stranded by those who once loved him, forced to live alone in some kind of living hell. That's what I'm talking about. The story says that to regain the trust of his people he must endure a long lonely journey across the galaxy, always on razor's edge, risking his life but his soul alike."

They remained silent for a moment, I guessed thinking about my words. That fairy tale...It was one of the first memories I had of my childhood. My mother, sitting beside my bed, telling me the story of these brave knights of ancient times, in their shiny armor and great swords, who could wipe away the wrongs they encountered. But she never insisted too much on the happy story of the Red and Yellow Knights. She always told me that the core of tale was the story of the sad Black and White Knight, who needed to find his own way in the galaxy. That's why I felt like him.

"Anakin, you might have to find your own way yet, but eight years ago you made the right choice." said Aleha. "That puts you on a completely different track than other Jedi who almost stepped to the Dark Side. Remember that life is made of choices. This time, you took the right one."

I nodded, taking a long sip of my drink. Aleha was right. She spoke wisely, for she was one of those people who were born wise. People like Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon Jinn, Master Yoda and her were rare. Her brother was a scholar, he spoke through the wisdom of years and years spent in the Archive studying. Aleha was a special girl. She had this fantastic ability to see both sides of the coin. And she could maintain a balance that few Jedi could.

"You know, when I was in that cell, sometimes I found myself thinking about what would have happened if Master Jinn would have survived the fight with Darth Maul." I chuckled at the thought of that day. "I think many things would have been different."

"I never met him but from what I gathered by the tales of those who did, I think that many things would have been different." replied Ahsoka, tracing the rim of her glass.

"Yes. Probably he would have detected the Siths presence in the Senate earlier. He was a very peculiar man." continued Darrick. "He saw all the shades of gray that many Jedi couldn't even think they were possible."

"Probably the Order would still be in its place." said Aleha then.

"I don't know if it would have been a good thing, Aleha." I replied.

The bar was slowly filling with people coming from the base. I could see many faces from my flying class and others were guards or people who worked at the weapon factory, on the fifth level.

"Why not?" asked Ahsoka.

"Because the Order as we know it was too passive. They waited too much on too many matters, when what the Republic needed was some action. The fact that the Jedi were peacekeeper doesn't mean that they had to sit around and wait for the Senate to tell them what to do." I explained my point as best as I could.

"And the rules were too strict." continued Darrick. "Look at Anakin. They didn't even want to train him! And when he had that burst of rage on Tatooine, he asked Aleha and me for help, not even his Master, because he knew he would have reported it to the Council and no one knows what would have happened then. The rules were too strict and the punishment for those who broke them were too drastic. It could have even been a minor rule, but the punishment was always one and only: expulsion."

"Not to mention that probably the greatest flaw of the whole architecture of the Order was the attachment to their place." Ahsoka thought aloud. "The Cole strictly forbids any kind of attachment, be it to a person, a place or an object. But look at the Council: if you tried to question their authority about some matters, they would get angry and throw you out of the room. They were too sure of their decisions."

"Don't tell me." I smiled. "What do you think would have happened if they discovered that I was married? And even that...damn it, every time I was on Coruscant I was never in my room at night, where I should have been. I spent pretty much all of my spare time with a certain Senator and I traveled to Naboo more often than a plasma cargo ship. What the hell, were they blind? I mean, Obi-Wan noticed there was something going on, but he covered me!"

"Ehm, Master, I myself had noticed there was something strange going on but, you know, I was never one who followed the rules by the book..." interjected Ahsoka.

"Thank you Snips. I really app..."

Someone grabbed my shoulder and yanked me away. In the dim light of the bar I barely recognized him.

Remember that sturdy man among the crowd when I jumped off the simulator? It was him, this time he had three friends with him. Three rather big friends. One of the slept not too far away from my dorm room. They were well known for being troubling people, always looking for a fight. That night didn't seem too different.

"Now you tell me how you made it in the simulator." he practically growled at me.

I rolled my eyes for a second. "Just some luck I guess."

"Don't think I'm gonna buy the luck thing. You cheated, I'm sure!"

At that point I stood up and faced him. He was at least one full foot shorter than me, practically towered him. "Listen, I don't really want to argue. It was some luck and I admit I studied the landing years ago, that's all. You're free to not believe me, I don't really care."

I was about to sit down again when one of his thugs grasped my arm and pulled again. "He's not done with you!"

"Well I'm done with him! I'm not here for your entertainment! You don't really wanna mess with me tonight, and I warn you, it's for your own safety!"

"And who the hell do you think you are?" almost shouted the short one. "Just because you hang out with them, that doesn't make you special!"

I was getting angry. That's what I meant when I said that sometimes being better than others in something can get you into trouble. That was the perfect example.

"Listen, just get something to drink and leave me alone. If you think I cheated, I don't really care. Get your whiny kids out of my way and have a nice evening, for all I even care..."

That's something I learned that night: never call whiny kid a seven feet high mountain of muscles. It's only gonna get you an uppercut straight to your jaw.

That's what happened. And I went flying straight over the table behind me. Fortunately, the three Jedi behind me were quick enough to save the drinks. At least that.

"Need help?" asked Ahsoka as I recovered from the blow. It wasn't that strong, but it was extremely precise, straight to my chin, and it stunned me for a second or two. It reminded me the feeling of a certain clone who was extremely skilled in hand to hand combat and was one of those who reduced me to a puddle of bleeding flesh, when I was in prison.

"Thanks Padawan but I think I can handle it."

In one swift motion I jumped to my feet, then I grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled him towards me. At the same time I repaid him with the same coin. A bone-breaking blow to his own jaw, this time with my left elbow, just where the durasteel skeleton met the real bones. I felt and heard the bones of his mandible breaking under the crushing strength of my hit. It send him unconscious on the floor.

His mates and leader were speechless. I had practically beat the bigger of them with one single hit. I felt their fear flowing through the Force. One of them took a careful step back, calling himself out of the fight. He was smart enough not to mess with someone like me.

His mates weren't. Too bad for them. The short one, the one that came to me whining about me cheating and whatever, tried to drag me down on the floor but I was faster and easily dodged him, sending him on the ground with a quick push on his back. He fell straight on his face with a loud thud, followed by a moan. His nose was bleeding profusely and this time I didn't even had to hit him.

The remaining thug stepped back as his fellow had done a moment before.

"If I were you I would take your friends out of here and leave me alone."

Of course they obeyed. They dragged them out of the bar and disappeared. Only then I noticed that I had drown the attention of everyone in there on me. I looked around for a moment then shrugged my shoulders. "They had it coming!"

That was enough, because all the customers returned to their own affairs and minded their own business.

Finally I sat down, holding my jaw in my hands. Damn, it hurt. I moved my mandible a couple of times to check if there was something broken but fortunately I was all in one piece. Even my teeth were all in their place. I had survived another brawl.

"Always the diplomatic one!" joked Ahsoka, half hiding a smile.

I shook my head. "I tried. They wouldn't listen. I wouldn't have hit them if they hadn't attacked me first!" I replied, defensively.

"You know Anakin, diplomacy has never been your strong point, but I admit this time you were right." stated Darrick. "Perhaps now they'll start following the rules and they'll stop bullying everyone in the base!"

"The big one, the one I hit first, sleeps not too far from my dorm. He's always causing trouble somewhere." I replied. "Maybe next time they won't go looking for a fight."

"At least they won't target you. By the way, I guess we have enough witnesses to lock them up somewhere in the base as we wait for some authority to come by and trial them." said Aleha. "Too bad for them, I know some Senators who don't really appreciate the fact that we take in even those who just got out of prison."

"Hey, I'm a former convicted too!" I snapped, still rubbing my sore face. Damn, I really needed to shave! Ahsoka was right. Well, at least the long beard hid the bruise quite well!

"You never committed any kind of crime!" she responded.

"By the laws of Tatooine I committed plural manslaughter that night at the Tusken camp. And don't forget that I broke at least ten or more laws of the Jedi Code!"

Sympathetically, Ahsoka patted my shoulder. "You're a desperate case Master."

Well, except for that minor incident with that gang that right the next day was arrested and sent for trial for aggression, the night was just perfect. It was a nice night out with some very close friends, friends I missed a lot. We talked , laughed and cried a bit when we remembered all those Jedi that had perished during Order 66, Operation: Knightfall and the Great Jedi Purge, as now they called those months right after the proclamation of the Empire. We all had friends among them. Many of them died, some had the luck to survive but as you can imagine, the trauma of that night and the chase that followed left them rather scarred, both physically and mentally.

Ahsoka was the luckiest of us all. She was in the Outer Rim during those months, on a planet she didn't even recall the name, following the traces of a bounty hunter who served under a crime lord who was exterminating peaceful farmers. The chase lasted for days, and for that period she was untraceable. The Republc didn't have a strong presence there, nor did the Separatists, which meant that she was alone there. Once she had found the bounty hunter she returned to civilization and the farmers she had helped informed of what had happened, offering their hospitality to protect and hide her. She used those long months, almost a year actually, to help them as she could and training them so they could defend themselves. When that mess calmed down enough so she could fly away from that planet, she flew to Alderaan and asked Bail Organa for help. He couldn't refuse. She was one of the first effective members of the Rebellion.

Aleha wasn't that lucky. She was on Coruscant, as Darrick, the night of Operation: Knightfall. The clones chased them down all night until they managed to elude them and hide in one of the worst zones of the planet. Both of them lost their Padawan. Kahae, Darrick's student, had died in the Temple but Aleha had to watch her fifteen years old student bleed to death in front of her eyes, practically a step away from safety. Bydon, that was his name, had been hit but tried to hide it, and he kept fighting like a beast, even if he was barely a kid with no experience except for what he had learned on the training grounds in the Temple.

After she had told us her story, well, we fell silent for more than a few minutes, pondering our own past. That was the war. The war that so many had encouraged, financed and wanted. The war my wife fought to stop. The same war I fought in the first lines. So many innocents lost their lives in those three years of madness, there weren't even an exact count of the fatalities. Let's just say that the death toll of the Battle Of Coruscant was astronomical. Multiply it for all the battles on all the planets and try to make your own esteem. I couldn't even think about it.

And now we were about to start a new civil war. We were war veterans, and we wanted was to retire somewhere secluded enough and live our life peacefully. A dream that wasn't bound to come true at least for other sixteen years. And even after so much time, another even greater civil war would have devastated the Galaxy. Brother against brother, father against son, this war, started so many years before, when I was only a kid, called for more blood each day. Some of that blood was my own, and with everything considered, I was lucky to have lost only my arm.

And believe me, in the thick silence fallen on us, interrupted only by the usual muted noises of a bar, we realized that was only the beginning of another bloodshed. And again we would have contributed.

Truth hurts, as it hurt the fist mark in my face.


	26. What It Means To Be Lonely

Six weeks after that night, the flying course was over and most of my class had been promoted to third class pilots, some to second class and two of us, including me, to first class pilots, which was the highest rank possible. It meant I could fly practically every kind of ship, from a small cargo to a huge freight and transport ship. Ahsoka had a lot to do with my promotion, because except for the Invisible Hand simulation show off I never actually tried to demonstrate how good of a pilot I am. There were more capable pilots than Atton Rosh, but she made him first class pilot. We argued about it, but she was certain I would have the chance to demonstrate I was worth of the first class tag.

No need to say that she was adamant about it and I couldn't find a way to make her change her mind. Lieutenant Atton Rosh was a first class pilot and one he would remain.

We were divided into four groups, four squadrons: Red, Gold, Blue and Green. I was codenamed Red Five and when the first fifty X-Wing fighters arrived, Ahsoka came to me one evening and said: work on it. She gave me full access to the ships storage area and practically ordered to make it better.

Not an easy task by the way. It was practically perfect for me!

With the first group of X-Wings came the projects and blueprints for another ship Incom engineers had designed. They had called it Y-Wing. It was a heavier version of the X-Wing, made for straight forwards attacks more than a hit and run design like the X-Wing. Its shields and armaments were stronger, but it lacked the speed that X-Wing could generate. It might even be a good ship, but I preferred having something a bit more elusive under my ass. You know, sometimes a fast withdrawal is the only way to get your skin back home.

Two groups of engineers and mechanics analyzed them for a couple of hours before they gave their approval. The Alliance would have purchased them once Income started the production. I wasn't a great fan of the design, and I would never be, but, you know, I wasn't the one who took the decisions after all. I was a subordinate in the end, even though I had been granted a grade. I could speak my mind, but I couldn't make decision.

It felt like being back in the Order.

And I didn't like it much.

Nevertheless, life was fine. Since the flying course was over and we were free to do what we wanted I spent half of my day working on my X-Wing and thinking about a nickname for the ship. The other half I spent it training with Ahsoka and when I had some time left I helped Aleha with the younglings.

Many of them were barely five years old, some others were older, but none of them was over eight. Practically the age of my children. Sometimes, when I watched them practicing with tiny training remotes, I found myself wondering what they were doing in that moment, where were they and most of all if they were alright. Aleha would usually drag me out of my thoughts, but one day it was someone else.

I was sitting on a pile of boxes and as I surveyed the younglings while they were doing their first exercises with higher power training remotes, I found myself lost in my thoughts. It was one of those days I felt inclined to let my mind wander. They came more often during these days, since I wasn't that occupied with training and the flying lessons. Darrick said it was a good sign, because I would have the time to think about what to do next and maybe gain some more confidence in myself, getting over the self-deprecating state I had plunged into after that nightmare when I was drunk.

I couldn't agree. I felt like a wreck. The knowledge of what I could have done felt like a ton of durasteel on my shoulders. Sometimes the anxiety took my breath away, mostly at night, while I waited for sleep in my bunk. Some days I felt better, mostly because I had something else that occupied my mind, be it some manual work or helping Aleha with the kids or some late night sparring session with her, Darrick and Ahsoka. During those days I felt really better. I didn't have the time to think about what would have happened if I had given in to the Dark Side. That wasn't one of those days.

That morning I had woken up after a rather strange dream that I guessed involved a grown up Leia, a guy named Han, a broken hyperdrive and some kind of asteroid field. Not to mention that the two of them looked quite close. Too close for my tastes. I guess every father is a bit jealous of their daughters, but they start getting overprotective in their regards once they were at least teenagers, but that dream made me suddenly realize that Leia one day would grow up and get involved with someone. I wasn't ready for that kind of thoughts and I felt somehow angry towards this guy. Fortunately I woke up before anything that could get me even angrier than that.

By the way, I was in one of my brooding moments when one of the youngest children, a girl called Hilean, turned off her green lightsaber and walked towards me. She placed her tiny hand on my leg and pulled me away from my thoughts.

"Are you alright Master?" she asked.

"Yes Hilean, don't worry, I'm fine. I'm just a bit sad, that's all." I tried to reassure her, smiling as much as I could.

Her expression changed, from worried to resolute, as she somehow clumsily climbed on the plasteel boxes I was sitting on then hugged me, as tightly as she could.

That gesture left me speechless. I could just hug her back, I couldn't do anything else.

"My mom always hugs me when I'm sad." she mumbled, breaking the silence.

I nodded. "My mom used to when I was your age." I replied, blinking back the tears that stung my eyes.

"She doesn't hug you anymore?"

I sighed. Thinking about my mother still hurt, even after ten years. "I think she would if she could be here." I answered, trying to blink back the tears. I got emotional while around kids, I still don't know why.

"Where is she?"

"Far, far away from here." First parental chore of my life: try to explain a five years old kid what death was. "Some years ago she took off and I never saw her again." that was the best thing I could make up in ten seconds or less. But Hilean wasn't that kind of girl. She was smart enough to detect my obvious lie.

"Is she dead?"

Straight to the point. I nodded. "Yes."

"I'm sorry Master." she hugged me again, even more tightly than before. "My dad died too. I never met him." she revealed, the innocent tone of her voice made my heart cringe. She was barely five and she already knew what death was. That was terrible.

"You know, I never met my own children too. Someone took me away from them before they were born." I said that instinctively, it slipped me.

She nodded. "I know."

I was about to ask her how could she know when Aleah called her. "Hilean, get back to work. Leave Master Rosh alone."

The little girl wriggled a bit and slid to the ground with a soft thud. "Alright Mom!"

She went back to her training, leaving me speechless again. Mom? What the fuck was going on here?

"Aleha, can I speak to you for a minute?"

Sighing, she nodded. "Alright kids, turn off your sabers and sit. It's time to meditate for some time. Remember what I always tell you. You have to let the Force flow, don't try to control it. You can't stop a river, remember that!"

As the younglings prepared for their meditation session, she walked to me, her shoulder slightly bent under some kind of invisible weight. I reached into the Force and all I felt around her was shame.

"You and your brother forgot to tell me something, am I right?" I almost laughed as we left the room.

"Anakin, I can explain..." she started, but I interrupted her.

"No need. I know how babies are made, you know, I fathered two kids!" I had to hide a large smile behind a hand, because the dismayed expression on her face was just too funny to remain serious.

"I know it's just that...Hilean shouldn't call me like that during classes." she said. "I always fear it would make the other kids think she's somehow above the others!"

"I didn't sense anything strange in the other kids when she called you mom." I replied. "It's probably the more balanced class I've ever seen since I was dropped in one twenty years ago!"

"I know. I don't know if it's the fact that they will grow up without the constrictions we had to face or it's just luck. They're amazing." she glanced back to the class and the twenty kids in it, as they sat cross-legged on the stone floor, meditating. The Force resonated in that room, like an orchestra playing from nowhere. It was one of the most calming sensation a Jedi could have.

"Who's her father?" I asked, a bit bluntly.

She looked at me, her eyes darkening. "Jax."

That name echoed in my mind. "Pavan?" I asked for a confirm. She nodded.

Jax Pavan was one of our closest friends. We were all part of the gang of the outsiders and all of us had some problems with authority.

Jax was the thinker. He was always pondering on something. He was a great fellow but if you caught him in one of those days, well, there was no way you could distract him from his musings.

I smiled. "I can't believe it. Is he really dead?"

She shook her head. "No. At least I don't know. He disappeared a couple of weeks before I found out I was pregnant and I never knew what happened to him. It's just easier to say he's dead. It's easier even for Hilean." a tear slipped down her cheek and she quickly wiped it away with her sleeve. "You know, a couple of years ago I got the chance to meet your family. And before you ask me, I really don't know where they are! Your kids and Hilean caught up soon and became friends quickly, even if they're three years older." she took a deep breath and steadied herself. "They're amazing Anakin. You're a lucky father."

She made me smile. "Everyone keeps telling me my kids are amazing. This time it's my turn. Hilean is amazing and you and Jax must be proud of her."

"I hope she didn't disturb you."

I shook my head. "At all. Actually, she gave me the only thing I needed."

She smiled, briefly. "What?"

"A hug." I replied. "And I think you need one now."

Nodding, she took a step forward and hugged me and obviously I hugged her back. Suddenly she sniffled and burst into a desperate cry. I had never seen her crying like that.

"Oh come on Aleha! I'm the one that gets emotional around kids!" I tried to damp the tension down.

"I just...I miss him, that's all!" she confessed, sniffling again.

"Oh, this is really the day when roles turned over!" I joked. "Come on, I know the feeling. It's not that it gets better with time but at least you learn how to live with it!" it was my turn to be the wise one this time.

She nodded. "I know. It's what Darrick keeps telling me. It's just that I'm alone most of the time."

I took a step back and looked straight in her teary eyes. "Hey, I know what it means to be lonely, there's no need to tell me. But you have to hold on Aleha, you have a wonderful daughter to take care of and those kids need you. You're the one they trust, to teach them and help them grow up. Jax will show up one day, and you'll be able to tell him what a wonderful daughter he has. We have to hold on!"

She launched forward and hugged me again, more tightly this time. She was so down, I had never seen anyone this depressed, except for me obviously. We had been sharing the same worries for years, the only difference was that I had been honest about it while she had hidden it. Probably only Darrick knew Hilean was her daughter. Now I could understood why she always found the right words to cheer me up a little.

"Thank you Anakin." she mumbled.

"For what?" I asked.

"For being here."

"Not a problem Aleha. We both needed this."

She backed away a couple of steps and wiped the tears away. "Yes we did. So...what are we gonna do?"

"We'll wait. And we'll see what life has planned for us." I replied. "And I have the feeling we won't have to wait too long now."

She was about to speak when we heard heavy steps in the hallway. A moment later, Darrick appeared, a serious look on his face. He was wearing his Jedi clothes, something he didn't do everyday. His lightsaber hanged from his belt. Bad sign. Worried look, Jedi attire, lightsaber displaying freely. There was something going on.

When he saw his sister in tears, he stopped in his tracks. "What's going on?"

"Nothing Darrick, I just needed a shoulder to cry on." she answered, suddenly steady and apparently calm.

"Is everything alright?" he walked towards his sister and placed his hands on her shoulders, squeezing them lovingly. He cared for her very much, that was sure.

"Yes, it's just something Hilean told him that made me sad, that's all."

"You forgot to tell me you had a niece when we met back on Naboo!" I joked, throwing a friendly punch on Darrick's shoulder.

"Oh crap..." he sighed. "I...I would have told you but she made me swear I wouldn't! I'm sorry Anakin..."

"No problem Darrick. No problem. Now it's your turn. Is something wrong?" I asked.

He nodded. "Actually there is. Seems like something's moving up in the headquarters. Senator Organa himself is here."

"What?" both Aleha and I asked, maybe a bit louder than what we intended to.

"He's here. He asked me to gather every high ranking officer of the base." he said. "So I was looking for you."

Aleha nodded. "Alright, give me a moment and I'll come." she took a deep breath trying to calm down a bit more.

"I'll stay with the kids." I said, a bit displeased but those children couldn't stay there all alone for too long.

"Like hell you will!" he snapped. "He might know where your wife is and you let the chance to meet him pass like this? No way Anakin! You come with us!"

"But the kids can't stay alone for too long!" I was true, I couldn't let the chance to meet Senator Organa pass away like that, but I had taken the responsibility to take care of them and I wouldn't let them down.

"I'll call someone so he can watch over them." said Aleha reaching in her pocket for a comlink. "Darrick is right, you come with us."

I sighed. "Alright. Let's go then."

As quickly as we could, we walked to the lift and joined the others who were going the same way. Captain Antilles was with them. When he spotted me, he made a strange face.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"He's with us Reymus." replied Aleha.

"He's not a ranking officer." he seemed skeptical.

"He's a Jedi Reymus, he's coming." stated a bit forcefully Darrick. He wasn't trying to use any kind of mind trick but I felt a tremor in the Force, as he spoke. He charged his words involuntary I think, enough to make Antilles flinch and stand back silently. He seemed convinced enough.

I had the feeling that even though Captain Antilles was one of most respected officers among the Rebellion, that couple of Jedi were deeply respected as even higher authorities. Let's say that after the Purge, the Jedi that remained and decided to join the Rebellion were placed at the highest ranks, sometimes straight to General or Admiral, and I believe that both Aleha and Darrick exceeded him in ranking.

We arrived at the first level of the and the door opened, showing a small crowd of officers speaking aloud, creating an echo that made impossible to hear anything other than a continuous buzz that filled the room. In the middle of the crowd I could clearly see Ahsoka talking to a couple of men I couldn't recognize and by the way she looked around I had the feeling she was looking for someone.

I pulled Darrick towards me for a moment. "I think I'll better stand in the back of the room. When Senator Organa is over with his speech, try to stop him and I'll find you."

"How do you know he's gonna give a speech?" asked Aleha loudly, trying to surpass the growing buzz.

"He's a politician, that's what they do. Something big is coming, I can feel it. Brace yourself!"

They nodded and I walked back towards the back of the room. There was a nice spot not too far from the corner of the room that allowed me to look around the whole room but not to be noticed at the same time. I leaned on the wall, crossed my arms and waited. It didn't take long for Senator Organa to appear. He asked for silence and waited until the crowd stopped talking and looked at him.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am Senator Organa, from Alderaan. In case you don't know who I am, and I hope that's not the case, I'm one of those who is financing the Alliance. Me and some other Senators. I am one of the founding members of the Alliance, eight years ago and most of all I am a man who's incredibly grateful for what you're doing here. You, and every other Rebel in this base and the others we have in the Galaxy." his calm gestures showed how much the long years in the Senate had forged him as a very skilled politician and communicator. He was using every ounce of his tricks to get the attention of the crowd in front of him.

"For eight years, since me and others Senators founded the Alliance, we have been waiting. Many of us tried to cross the Emperor's decisions in every matter, from economy to the army, but we failed miserably. Well, this time, we will strike back. We've been preparing for months now, and in three days from now we'll launch our first real attack. It's time to claim what's ours again. What that man stole from our hands with his tricks and deceiving. He betrayed the trust we put in him and now it's our turn to get it back." the last two phrases were spoken with such an emphasis it was practically impossible not to get moved by his speech. As it was predictable, the crowd cheered and applauded him.

With a gesture of his hands, he called for silence. Once the crowd had muted itself, he went on.

"I've called you here to inform you that our objective is the Imperial Construction Site outside Daltara's atmosphere, in the Inner Rim. The Empire is building six new Super Star Destroyers, the most powerful weapons on our enemy's side. If we manage to destroy them, or at least slow them down, causing enough damage to the structures so they'll have to repair the shipyard before they can continue, it will be a huge success. Your job now is to inform your subordinates and prepare them. You'll receive the maps for the area and the plans and strategies. At the same time we'll attack an Imperial base on the planet." he added then, causing more than a head to shoot up and looking straight at him. "Therefore, there will be a huge deploy of forces, both the Starfighter Corps and the Infantry squads. Now, return to your occupations and prepare your squads."

With that said, he took a step back. His speech was over. Not a bad one, I had heard better, but I had heard worse ones too. He was a skilled politician, that was true. I had assisted to many Senate sessions and he was one of the best in his field.

From my observation point I could see the excited faces of those who were exiting. Poor fools. I could recognize those who actually knew what we were going to face. Those who were happy to get into action were the rookies, the veterans weren't too happy about it.

Well, I could understand them. After all I knew what would have happened and I knew that probably half of them wouldn't return to the base. It wasn't a great prospective but this is war, and in war, casualties happen.

By the way, when most of the crowd had dissipated, I moved away from my spot and walked towards Darrick, Aleha, Ahsoka and Senator Organa. They were all looking at a hologram in Organa's hands.

Politely, I remained a few steps away from them, waiting for them to stop talking. It didn't take long. Ahsoka spotted me behind Darrick's shoulder and called me.

"Senator Organa, excuse me, I would like to introduce you Lieutenant..."

The senator stopped her. "No need to introduce the Hero Without Fear, Master Tano."

We all looked at him, stunned. I must have made a strange face because he suddenly laughed, almost bursting but still controlling himself.

"Did you think your cover would hold on this long?" he said, still smiling. "As soon as Master Tano reported that a certain Atton Rosh completed the Invisible Hand Simulation well, I knew there was something special about this guy."

"I..." I didn't know what to say. I was dumbstruck. "I thought I..."

"Anakin, please. I've met you too many times to forget your face, even if you try to mask your appearance and now you're a bit thinner than eight years ago. That scar it's what betrayed you."

Unconsciously my hand went to my eye. I had never thought about that. That scar was the least of my thoughts after the wound had healed. I was fine with that in the end. I really didn't think about it as an identification sign.

"By the way, it's good to see you alive and well. I tried to find out where they kept you but it was practically impossible. Your name didn't appear in any registry." he said, as we walked towards a tactic table with an holographic projector.

"That prison practically erased the names of the prisoners. We were identified through numbers. But I appreciate it, really."

He gestured us to sit down and scrambled with an holodisc then an holo of the system we were going to attack. I had never been on that planet but I knew the sector.

"You know, when I heard that you had managed to break out of that place well, I was sure that one day or another I would have met you in a similar occasion. By the way, I guess you got into the Rebellion to find your wife too."

I nodded. "Yes sir." I admitted.

"I've tried to help him sir." interjected Darrick. "With that huge bounty on his head, I thought it would have been better to hide him somewhere he could have been helpful and do the dirty job myself. I even asked you, some months ago, if you knew where she was but apparently no one was aware of her whereabouts." he stated, his eyes fixed on the hologram in front of us.

"I remember. But as months ago, I don't really know where she is. Only Master Kenobi does, and he's untraceable. He contacts us if he needs anything, but never reveals his location." he sighed. "Last time I talked to them, it was six days ago. Padmè confirmed she'll command the land troops."

At his words I practically shot up straight from the chair. "Are you sure?"

He nodded. "She told me herself. And knowing both Padmè and Master Kenobi, and during these years I had the chance to get to know him pretty well, they wouldn't have missed it. They've been hiding for too long, it's time they get the place they deserve."

"But if Obi-Wan fears there's even a hint of danger for her or the twins, he won't allow it." said Ahsoka. "From what I know, he's keeping a very low profile. He even changed name, most of all because of the bounty."

"So far he did a wonderful job. He took his role very seriously." stated Darrick. "I don't know if anyone else could have done better."

I nodded. "I asked him to protect them. Before I let them take me, I asked him to protect them. And he obviously did a great job. I didn't know it would have been so hard to locate them."

Senator Organa smiled. "I think your search will end soon. I wanted to help you years ago, and I swear this time I will."

"Thank you Senator. I..." that news was almost too much to bear. I was about to cry. "I don't know how I can repay you for this."

"Do your best on that X-Wing. That's all I ask. I'm tired of the Empire and everything."

I stood up and bowed respectfully. "I will sir. Now, if you excuse me, I have a few things to do."

He stood himself. "Go Anakin. It was a pleasure to meet you."

I smiled. "The pleasure was all mine. See ya guys!" with that I left them making a strategy for our attack. I would have loved to participate but my mind was somewhere else and I couldn't concentrate on anything but the fact that I had almost made it.

I was so close I could almost feel it.

No need to tell you that, once I was alone, that I started crying like a boy. And this time, they were happy tears.

In three days, everything would have been over.

Or so I thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting into the fun stuff from here on. Hang on guys!


	27. Riot In Everyone

The next couple of days were frantic, as you can guess.

When the news of the attack broke the activity in the base was feverish. Everyone was in haste to complete their tasks before we left. I myself was a bit occupied with checking every X-Wing I could put my hands on, just in case there was a flaw in the vehicle or any kind of problem.

I spent some long hours working on my own, adding the final touches here and there on the engine and the armaments. I added a power cell to the shields and redirected the energy used by the aiming computer system to the armaments. I preferred manual aiming, therefore the computer was practically useless on my X-Wing.

After that I closed the engine compartment and stared at it for a couple of minutes. As it was right then, it was a long mass of gray durasteel and duraglass. It needed a touch of personalization. And a name.

But first things first, some color. And I had an idea. I gathered as many buckets of colored I could find then called Aleha and told her to bring the kids in the hangar in an hour. It was time to be kids again for them, not only young Jedi in training.

I tried to get as many brushes as I could find, but it seemed like at the base there were more airbrushes than usual ones. Well, they had to adapt. I couldn't do miracles!

After looking for the brushes, I went looking for a scaffold safe enough for children of that age. Once I found one, I tried to find something to make it even safer. I soldered a couple of bars that lay in an angle of the hangar to one of the side, so they couldn't get stuck or fall down. After all, that ship was rather tall, I didn't want any accidents, I cared to much about those children.

When they arrived, I tried to conceal the paint buckets and sat in front of them. They seemed somehow intimidated by their surroundings. Probably they had never been in the hangar and all that strange activity, noise and smell frightened them.

"Here we are Master Rosh!" said Aleha cheerfully, as she gathered the kids closer.

"Oh, well, fantastic. How are you kids?" I asked.

"Fine, Master." They replied altogether.

"Good, because I want all of you happy and smiling because today we're gonna make a wonderful exercise!" their faces lit up a bit. "This..." I pointed to the starfighter behind me. "...is my X-Wing. Inside is just perfect, but outside...I don't really like it. It's plain, gray and...well it makes me sad."

"What are you going to do about that?" asked Hilean then.

"I'm not going to do anything. It's up to you now!" I fished for the paint buckets underneath the table I was sitting on. "Brushes, paint and all your fantasy! The wings are all yours!"

Suddenly they were all jumping in ecstasy! They were kids again and that's what they needed. I climbed in the cockpit and opened the S-Foils then I started opening the paint buckets as Aleha handed out the brushes and helped them on the scaffolds then on the hull of the ship. The little artist that's inside every kid came out, springing from their eyes as they laughed and apparently coordinated in order to get those wings painted at least symmetrically.

"You had a wonderful idea Anakin." said Aleha as I sat down beside her. "They needed this. They've been feeling this tension building up at the base and they needed a release."

"Fortunately I still remember how it feels to be a kid. And anyway, it's true. That X-Wing is just too plain. I'm sick of plain colors in my life. Ever since I was a kid, everything was gray, black and stuff like that." I grabbed a tool beside me and started toying with it, levitating in front of me. "I'm making my own personal riot! I want that thing as colored as it can be!"

She started using the Force on the tool herself, trying to snatch it out of my control, challenging me in a playful duel like when we were kids. She tugged and pushed as hard as she could and it was getting hard to maintain control on the wrench in front of us. It trembled and flipped under the influence of the Force as we wrestled for control while laughing like the kids on my X-Wing.

In the end Aleha, always the smart one, practically threw herself on me, her elbow crashing on my ribs diverting my attention so she could grab hold of the wrench as it flew in her hands.

After a moment or two of disconcert, we both burst into hard laugh. So hard I was practically rolling on the table we were sitting on. "You're fucking cheater!" I gasped at some point. "That's not fair!"

She was crying for too much laughing. "It's you that didn't sense the danger! It's your fault!"

"Like hell it's my fault! You jumped over me!"

"That's always been one of my best moves and you know that! Probably if you had tried to distract Dooku you'd still be in one piece!" she mocked me.

If someone would have told me something like that eight years before, well, he would have been on the floor holding his bleeding nose and moaning in pain. But after what I had been through, that mocking was nothing. I just laughed harder and snatched the wrench from her hand.

We were still laughing hard a minute or two later, when we heard one of the kids screaming in pain. We looked at the X-Wing and we saw one of the youngest children holding his arm as if he had fallen on it.

I jumped off the table and a second later I was at his side. He was trying to bite back the tears but I could sense his pain. From what I could guess, he had slipped and fallen squarely on his elbow. It was a miracle he didn't have a broken bone or two.

"Hey Kol, what's up?" I asked even if I already knew that. "What hurts?"

"My arm..." he grumbled, sniffling a bit. "I fell on it!"

I looked around to the other kids. They all looked very worried. I had to do something. "Come on, let me see."

He stretched his little arm towards me and as delicately as I could I rolled up the sleeve of his shirt. A small bruise was forming, but it wasn't broken. No damage done. Nothing permanent at least. His pride was badly nicked, that was sure.

"Nothing's broken Kol, everything will be alright. Stand up a moment would you?" he did as told. "Good. You can still stand, that can't be that bad! Now, move your arm slowly."

Kol move his arm perfectly. He moaned a couple of times but after a bend or two everything went back to normality.

"Fantastic!" I exaggerated a smile! "See? Nothing's broken! Now, do you want to get back to paint?"

He nodded, determined. "Yes sir." he replied. "But...can I ask you something?"

"Sure Kol, everything!"

Well, it wasn't properly a question, it was more like asking a permission to do something. Practically, he took a step forward, wound his arms around my neck and hugged me tightly. "Thank you." he mumbled.

"For what?" I asked, hugging him back.

"For saving us."

I took a deep steadying breath just before another kid joined Kol. Then another one. Soon that small accident became the occasion for a group hug that gave some comfort to every kid and of course to me and Aleha alike. Not a bad ending for such a bad start!

The next day was even more frenetic. We had finished the check up on the ships and prepared some back ups too, but no one wanted just to sit around and do nothing so both the pilot squads and infantry reunited in the fields above the base for a limmie match. We were all sitting in the common room doing nothing when a guy from the infantry squads suggested a small tournament as a diversion. The day was perfect: clean sky, warm with a light breeze. Perfect weather for some sport.

Even if some of the officers didn't totally agree because they feared someone could notice such a great crowd, we managed to organize a small three teams tournament in one of the fields. Pilots versus infantry versus workers. Some though didn't know the rules, most of all those who came from the Core worlds, so we had to teach them. After all we needed to relax a bit before the battle, tomorrow. That was our tiny riot against tension. And it worked.

First match was pilots versus workers. As when I was a kid, I instantly started as an attacking role, running all over the improvised field with Haron helping me. If you don't know the rules, the game is basically a match between two teams. Contenders must score a goal or more in order to win, controlling a ball with any part of their bodies except for hands and arms. Hard contrasts between players were banned and punished in case they occurred. That's it, easy and smooth. On Coruscant and in the Core worlds it wasn't such an important sport, it was barely considered, but outside the Core and most of all in the Outer Rim, it was widely played by almost everyone. Mandalorians were probably those who loved limmie the most in the whole galaxy, and I myself used to play it when I had some time with the other kids in Mos Espa.

Anyway, the opposed team was very skilled. Later I got to know that many of them played when they were kids, just like me. I admit it was hard not to cheat and use the Force or any Jedi trick in order to win but in the end I managed to control myself. I had to after all, Aleha was one of the referees!

And well, running on that grassy field was just liberating. After weeks of brooding, the wind on my face gave me such a sense of freedom I never though I could feel. It was incredible. I was one of those who ran faster, throwing assists and some nicely placed kicks to the goal, and two of them managed to trick the keeper. That felt so good! Most of all when I managed to deviate Dakk's wrong kick with my head and send the ball right beside the keeper, where he couldn't reach and block it.

It was a sunny and warm day, in the end all the players were soaked with sweat. At some point, it was hard to distinguish the various teams. We used our working uniforms discern the players in order to pass the ball to the right man, but when everyone started taking off the uniforms well, we had to invent something. One of the kids came up with the idea to paint a colored stripe on our shoulders or our shirts. The idea was absolutely wonderful, it worked just fine. I was one those who couldn't stand the feeling of a sweaty shirt against my back and by the first half of the second match I was bare to the waist. Someone asked me about my scars, most of all the ones on my back, but no one cared too much. There were enough strange men in the Alliance, I wasn't the worst one.

By the time the sun reached the horizon and we couldn't see enough to play, we decided to retire in the base and take a shower before dinner. Damn, the lift smelled like a dirty locker room, it was awful! Aleha was trying not to breath and when she managed to get out of the lift she took a long deep breath. "Woof! I didn't know men could smell that bad!" she said, disgusted.

"Remember the smell of the locker room at the Temple?" asked her brother, who had played in the infantry team.

"I was in the girls locker. I never set foot in the boys' one! And I'm happy as it is!" she responded.

We all returned to our rooms and got ready for dinner. That day shift for shower left me as the last one, so I grabbed a towel and at least dried the sweat off of me. "Damn, playing on the grass is much easier than playing on sand!" I said taking off my shoes and socks.

"That header was just awesome!" shouted Dakk from the bathroom. "I had never seen anyone using his head like that Anakin!"

"Thanks Dakk, but your assist was at least as good!" I replied. "Uff...I need a shower!"

"Wait for your turn." snapped Haron above me.

"I'll wait don't worry. Dinner won't be ready for another hour so, I have time."

After dinner, which was pretty abundant for a change, we were gathered in the training grounds and finally they showed us the strategy. We would have traveled to a rendezvous point near Kalkovak where we would have met the rest of the fleet then we would have moved to Daltara. The smaller ships like the X-Wings would have traveled inside the bigger freights, in order save propeller liquid. That would have allowed also to confound our traces so the Empire could track our traces only to Kalkovak. Small ships like our ones didn't leave enough traces to be tracked for so many light-years. Clever tactic, that's for sure.

When the briefing was over, the others returned to their rooms, I stayed down there for a while, flipping through the maps and the holos of the simulated attack. It was a tight crossed attacks, with heavy ships performing straight forward attacks while smaller ships with lower fire power but able to perform faster moves would have covered them against turrets and Imperial ships. One hundred ships of various dimensions would have been used. Not to mention the infantry troops on the planet.

It was a huge deploy of forces. Not too different from the Wars. We had a single chance, we'd better seize it and destroy that shipyard. And I would have done everything I could in order to transform that base into a wreck, a bunch of space junk.

It was only when Captain Antilles ordered me to get back in my room and take some sleep that I left that place in front of the holo projector.

"What are you doing here by the way?" he asked as we walked towards the lift.

"I was checking out a couple of things, that's all. I like to memorize the plans before messing up with them and improvise." I replied.

He looked at me with curious eyes. "Darrick said you're a Jedi, but it's not in your record. Why?"

"Because I have a huge bounty on my head. That's why. And please, don't add it on my file. It's better this way."

By the look on his face, he didn't seem convinced. Anyway, he remained silent until I stepped off the lift and walked towards my room. All the doors were already closed, but both Jag and Haron were awake. Dakk was fast asleep in his bunk, covers pulled up to his head while the others were occupied in a tight conversation on the events of the next day.

"Everything alright?" they asked as I sat on my bed.

"Yeah, sure. I just wanted to check out some things on the plan." I replied. I lay down and stared for a second at the bunk above me. "You know that once we start the attack it's all about being quick?"

They nodded. "That's what Ahsoka taught us!"

"Good. Now I don't pretend to be the best pilot of the Galaxy because I'm sure there's someone better than me..." a sudden rush of humility, that was strange! "...but tomorrow every strategy, every plan you have memorized, everything you learned during the last few months will be useless. Tomorrow will be a havoc, there won't be anyone to save your ass. It's a matter of being quick or be dead. That's it. Be very careful tomorrow, because otherwise you're not gonna be part of the wrecks that will litter that system for years."

I didn't want to sound too catastrophic but that's what they needed to know. There was no insurance they would return home tomorrow, any of them could die any moment during the battle, me included. There was no need to lie about it. They needed to know. Even if they would be scared to death. But if there's something I learned about being a pilot is that fear usually makes you faster, but only if you accept it. If you let fear guide you, you freak out. If you manage to metabolize the feeling, use it somehow as a weapon, and concentrate of getting back safe and sound, you have more chance to survive.

There was a moment of silence after that.

"Are you scared?" asked Haron then.

I sighed. "Of course I am. I'm always scared to death before a battle. And even during a battle. I know that people used to call me The Hero Without Fear but that's the biggest lie of the universe. I was always scared to death, most of all after I got married. And it was the fear that brought me home every day."

"How does it feel?" asked Haron. "I mean, how does if feel being up there, with lasers shooting all around you?"

"Feels like you want to throw up everything you've eaten in all your life." I revealed. "But you're gonna test it yourself tomorrow. Now, it's time to sleep. You'll need it."

Strange enough, sleep came easily that night, a long, deep and dreamless sleep that I surely needed before a day like the one we were facing. For the first time in weeks it was Jag who woke me up and not a dream or my newly acquired inability to sleep. It was fantastic!

"Anakin, wake up. We need to get down to the hangar in two hours and we still have to get breakfast. Come on, we promised the others to be there with them." he said pulling away my covers. I opened one eye only to see them all sitting on the bed in front of mine, all ready to get to the refectory.

"Alright, I'm up. Just give me a moment!" I said standing groggily up and dragging myself to the bathroom.

What I saw in the mirror nearly scared me. Usually I didn't pay too much attention to my appearance, but that morning I did notice. I looked twenty years older than what I really was. "Shit look at that!" I practically shouted, jumping back against the wall.

"Look at what?" asked Jag.

"At me! Look there! I look like I'm fifty, not thirty!" I was shocked. Probably feeling that well after a long night of sleep made me suddenly aware of how I looked like. Terrible.

"Hey, it's you that decided to let your beard grow, not us!" he replied.

"Damn it...Haron, can I borrow your razor?"

Ten minutes later I was shaved and I was about to get dressed when, fishing through my closet, I grasped part of my Jedi tunic. A flash of memories came up in my mind, and I realized that it was time to be myself again. I had already decided to get my face cleaned up, now it would be useless hiding the fact that I was a Jedi. Many of those who lived in the base knew that Atton Rosh was a Jedi, why not dress like one?

The main problem was the fact that even if Jobal had made a great job sewing the damaged parts, the shirt I wore underneath the tunic was still stained with blood. She had washed it three times but the reddish stain on the right side was still quite visible. Well, I was lucky enough that my tunic was dark brown, therefore if it was still stained, no one would have noticed.

It felt strange wearing my Jedi attire again. It had been almost a year since the last time I wore it. It felt somehow heavier that the civil clothes I was now used to wear, but at the same time, it felt right. I held my breath as I clipped my lightsaber at my belt. It was a strange sensation, being officially a Jedi again, after so many years.

It felt damn good. I loved it.

When I stepped out our room with the others, meeting with Sijon and the others, I attracted every kind of stare on me, from shocked to admiring. Probably someone recognized me, I didn't know for sure, but no one said anything. Even during breakfast and the quick briefing, no one mentioned my change. Only Ahsoka smiled when she saw me with my "new" face.

I was jumping in my X-Wing when she came up and stopped me from closing it. "Wait a second Master."

I sighed. "I told you, call me Anakin!"

"Whatever...Anakin, please, could you give one of your motivating speech once we get on the freight that will bring us to Daltara?"

I rubbed my hand on my face, not too happy with that request. "Why me?" I asked. "Wouldn't Senator Organa fill the place better?"

"He's on Coruscant, he won't be present today. I would ask Master Kenobi but I can't get in touch with him! You've always been a good motivator, at least with me and the Clones."

"I don't know Ahsoka...I'm just a mechanic for the most of them!"

"Who cares! Come on, you're the only one that can boost them up!" she practically pleaded me.

I shook my head, defeated. "Alright I'll do it. But you're in debt!"

"Yes Master, don't worry."

She closed the cockpit and signaled I was ready to take off. Once I received a clear signal, I boosted up the engines and flew out of the hangar and up, out of the atmosphere. Once there, I pushed the autopilot and let the ship drive itself to the rendezvous coordinates. It was a nice one hour long flight. I mentally replayed the space battles I had participated, in order to find something that might come in hand once the real attack started. The only battle that had a similarity to this one was the Battle of Coruscant, but I doubted anything would come handy about that battle.

Anyway, when I stepped out of hyperspace, I saw many other of our ships do the same, and six freights ahead of us. We all received the order to head towards the biggest ship, a former Republican freight used for long distance transport and headquarters for many space battles and more. I knew that class of ships, the Empire was heavy relying on that kind of design and projects to develop new kind of ships, like the new Super Star Destroyers we were gonna wreck, and they were the fastest and safest things that could fly in open space. Just look at the Invisible Hand!

Anyway, we landed in the main hangar and some of the crew men attended our X-Wings almost immediately, checking propeller levels and stuff like that. Once every pilot had landed, an officer made a roll-call, just to be sure that everyone arrived to the meeting point safe and sound then guided us to a nearby room. Most of the officers were already there, plus more pilots I had never met, probably people coming from another base.

I could sense a mix of feelings in that room, from excitement to pure fear. It was almost intoxicating, I had to concentrate in order to stay calm and controlled, since Ahsoka had asked me to perform the motivating speech. Something I hated to do, at least in front of such a crowd. Motivating her, or a bunch of clones was far easier than trying to boost up a crowd of inexperienced pilots at their first space battle. But I had promised her, so I had to go on and swallow my own stage fear.

I spotted Ahsoka somewhere in the crowd and walked towards her. "Hey Padawan!" I called. "Are we ready?"

"Yes Master. We're almost ready. Everyone is here and we're about to jump to hyperspeed. Now the question is: are  _you_  ready?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest.

I shrugged my shoulders. "As long as I have this with me..." and I pointed to my lightsaber. "I'm always ready. So, when do I have to give my totally improvised speech?" I asked.

"In a minute. And after that, there's a surprise for you."

"What kind of surprise?" I asked again.

"Short, blue and white. Beeps instead of speaking. Was a property of a certain Senator for ten years..." she said, walking up the stairs to a catwalk just above the crowd.

"You found Artoo?" I was stunned.

"He found me. I think someone told him you would participate and he asked if he could be present. He's in the hangar by the way, already assigned to your X-Wing."

I hugged her tightly. "Thank you Padawan."

"Oh, that's nothing. Come on, it's time to pump some adrenaline in them."

She turned to the crowd and I stood a couple of steps behind, watching the crowd beneath us.

"Alright, the moment has come. We're about to start a war. It's a huge responsibility and we're all a step away from a turning point. We will all be part of something far bigger than what you can think. Any single pilot and soldier today will make history. Many of you have been my students, and I trust they will put my teachings in good use. But today there's something special for you." she briefly glanced back at me, smiling. "Some time ago I found someone. A man I thought I had lost. A man that taught me all the things I taught you. I would put my own life in his hands, and years ago I did, as he did with me. We saved each other many times, and learned from each other. Today I have the pleasure to give you Master Anakin Skywalker."

A sudden rumble came from the crowd as they heard my name. It was a name printed into a legend after all. I threw her a not so good glance. I didn't knew she was going to use my real name!

I took a step forward and leaned the handrail. It took me a couple of moments to gather my thoughts and get rid of the stage fear. I always hated that side of myself.

"Eight years ago I participated to the Battle Of Coruscant. That day happened many things, and probably it was my fault too if what happened well, happened. We've all been blind. We didn't see the dark storm coming, twenty one years ago, and we didn't see it until it was too late." I was improvising, I had nothing prepared. "Today, were taking the first step on the path that will change things. Eight years ago we allowed a man to take control of the Galaxy, our Galaxy without even raising our voice. His methods have been terror, repression, bloodshed. And up to now it worked. He kept us down, but this day, this very day, a riot will start. And there's nothing he can do to stop us. We've been quiet for too long. They think they can hold us down forever, but it's time to turn the Empire over."

At that, another rumble, even louder than before, shoot up from the crowd and echoed in the hall. They were responding better than what I thought.

"They say we should live as we are told to. They're making us puppets in some kind of freak show, and sincerely I'm tired. I've been kept prisoner for seven years and believe me I won't take shit anymore from them. We're gonna crash them, and we're gonna be as loud as we can as we tear them apart! It won't be an easy path. It will take years probably, years of civil war. We're clandestine, and it won't be easy. There will be long months of inactivity, of undercover work and stuff like that, but we will always be ready to fight. Like now. Today, we decide our own fate. We are breaking the chains that bind us. And I won't stop until the Emperor is well dead and a democratic government is placed in the Senate again."

They were ecstatic. All beneath me I saw nodding heads, fists raised and people quivering. I grabbed the handrail harder and went on.

"From the first to the last, from soldier to pilot to the youngest sympathizer to the Rebellion, we're here to change the course of history. We're taking the first steps towards the darkest of times, and I want all you to know that it won't be easy. This is the moment to fight, and I will fight to death, to the edge of the Galaxy, wherever the war will bring us, we're gonna be there. I'm gonna be there. I'm tired of hearing of riots that ends in bloodshed, I'm exhausted of waking up with the news of another massacre on another planet. I don't want my kids to live in a Galaxy like this. There's a riot in everyone and this is our chance to make it happen. Are you with me?" I was shouting, I was getting carried away by my own words.

And they were with me. They were all going crazy. That's the crew I wanted to see. Pilots ready to dive deep in the middle of the battle. Soldiers ready to run in the midst of a gunfight. That's what the Galaxy needed.

"Today I'll make an oath. Here, now, I swear on what I believe is most sacred, to devolve my life to a newly restored Republic. The same Republic I swore to serve and protect nine years ago when I was made a Jedi Knight. And my fellow Jedi Knights, those who survived the Purge, will do the same. Now, let's get back to our position and prepare to kick some shiny Imperial ass!"

As the crowd cheered, I took a step back and then breathed deeply. I admit I had been using the Force to charge my words. It was a low-powered mind trick, but it worked perfectly. They were filled with adrenaline to their necks. And they would be charged like that for a long time.

"Well done Master, they needed it." said Ahsoka.

I took a deep breath. "I think I needed it just like them. Woof! Best boosting speech I ever made!"

"That's sure. Come on, let's get down to the hangar. We're not that far from Daltara."

We made our way to the hangar and started the preparation for the battle. Last check up on the systems and the armaments then we would be ready. Guess what? A short, barrel-like astromech droid was making some kind of tricks on my ship. I couldn't help but smile. In eight years, he hadn't changed a bit.

"How's it going Artoo?" I asked as I knelt down next to him, looking at his mechanical arm as it performed his miracles on the circuits of the armament systems.

He beeped back, just as if I had always been with him for the past eight years.

"Good. Ready for another battle?" I asked patting on his chromed dome. Another cheerful beep. "Same for me. Do you mind if I ask you how's Padmè?"

Well, practically translating what he said, she was fine and concentrated on her commanding role on another ship, with the land troops. The twins were with her and Obi-Wan was going to join them as Gold Leader. Not to mention that they had to wipe Threepio's memory because he was unable to keep his mouth shut!

"Thank you Artoo. Now, what do you think of the X-Wing?" I asked, unable to mask the sniffle that came up on its own when he mentioned that Padmè was on a ship near the this one. That was the shortest distance we had been in eight years. And we talked about kilometers.

He liked it. He liked the droid socket, it gave him lots of space to work in and the ship was good, at least at his electronic eye. He was messing around the armament system because he thought the rapid fire mode wasn't fast enough. Good enough he was working on it.

At some point he retrieved his mechanical arm and closed the lid of the compartment, beeping that he was done and ready to be placed in the X-Wing.

"Ok Artoo, let me find the windlass!" that droid will never stop amazing me.

Half an hour later, a voice announced we were ready to jump out of hyperspace and we had to get inside our X-Wings as fast as we could.

With Artoo tucked in his place, I jumped in my placed, fastened the seat belts and secured the old-style comlink headset to my ear. I was probably the only one except for Ahsoka who didn't use a helmet. I didn't like it. It was cumbersome, limited my vision field and it made my hair stick out to every direction with static energy every time I took it off. No, it wasn't for me. Old school headset, just like during the wars. It worked just fine for me.

I turned on the engine just like the others and waited for instructions. I stretched my arms and fingers a couple of times, trying to find a nice and comfortable position in order to have anything under control. After that, I closed my eyes for a moment and concentrated. I could feel every component of the ship clicking just fine. Everything was going as planned. I grasped the handler and checked the rudder. Not a problem. It was just a matter of time.

I was excited. To say the least. I was scared, that was sure, but excitement overcame fear. I was concentrated on my task, which was covering the heavier ships during the attack, and I would have done anything in order to prevent their destruction.

After a couple of minutes the leaving orders were given. First Blue Squadron, from leader to Blue Thirty. Red, from Leader to Red Thirty. Green, from Leader to Green Forty-one. Gold, from Leaeder to Gold Twenty.

There was a quick roll call. We were all ready, and hearing Obi-Wan speaking again, even though it was through a comlink and not face to face, galvanized me.

"Gold Leader, it's nice to hear your voice again!" I said at the and of the roll call.

"Same here Red Five." he replied cheerfully. "Ready for another roll?"

"Ready as always Master! Hope you've overcome your hate towards every kind of flying trip!" I joked.

"Like hell I did! Anyway, nice speech. You really boosted them!"

"Thank you Master."

We felt the ship halting as it exited from hyperspace and almost immediately the hangar doors were opened. Orderly, but fast, we exited the hangar and took our place in formation. More than one hundred ships were ready to make a mess, not to mention the land troops that would soon deploy on the planet.

The shipyard was just ahead of us. That was our goal. Just like the limmie match the day before, we were ready to play. And we would have done anything we could to score more goals than the Empire.

Only one thing was left to say at that point.

"May the Force be with all of you."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI: Limmie is the Star Wars version of soccer.


	28. Let The Revels Begin Let The Fire Be Started

"May the Force be with all of you."

A long, thick silence echoed through our comlinks until Red Leader, Ahsoka, don't know the name, called the line up.

"Red Squadron split in half and get in protective position. We're coming close and the first moments are crucial." she said, a commanding tone in her voice I had never heard. She had a rather authoritarian demeanor in class, but never commanding. Now, in that situation, she was everything a leader needed to be. Great, she had learned the lesson in the end.

A series of "Aye sir." echoed in my ears.

The shipyard was ahead of us, coming closer and closer, yet the defensive lines didn't show up.

There was something wrong, they should have had detected us long ago and still there were no signs on my sensors of any kind of defensive actions. Not a ship launched, not a turret fired. There was something really really wrong. I had a bad feeling.

"There's something wrong here. Where are the defensive lines?" I asked.

"Don't know. But you're right Red Five. Let's keep our eyes open alright?" replied Obi-Wan.

From my position, I could see his X-Wing, probably fifty feet above me. He was commanding the main attack squad, while I was in the defensive line. Practically, he had all the fun and I was stuck protecting the bombers. Certain people get all the good luck.

It took all my concentration to find a suitable and comfortable state of mind for the situation. If I didn't knew better, I thought my hands were sweating, but considering that one was artificial and the other was wrapped up in a tight flight gauntlet that absorbed perspiration in order to achieve the better grip possible, I shoved away the thought as a product of my too vivid imagination. I took several deep breaths before I could consider myself steady enough. There was that strange feeling that didn't want to abandon me, even if I was trying to think as positive as I could.

Anyway, still no signs of any kind of defensive measures. We had already crossed the point of no return, that line that shows how determined you are and assures the enemy you're about to attack, but still nothing. I was beginning to think that they didn't have any kind of security measures.

"Steady now, long range sensors are picking up some activity!" said Green Leader from his bomber.

We didn't have to wait long. As we approached, still in tight line-up, we saw twenty TIE-Fighters, the top of the Imperial fleet in regards of starfighters, coming towards us. It was the Imperial version of the X-Wing. They flew all around us a couple of times, then released all their firepower upon us.

"Red Two to Fifteen with me, we'll take care of them." shouted Ahsoka, immediately exiting the tight lineup and chasing them.

We flew out of line-up and followed the Tie-Fighters, engaging them in battle.

"Alright. Gold Squadron, let's spread around and start a first firing line." Said Obi-Wan.

As I followed a TIE, I saw the manoeuvrings of the other squads, still biting back that strange feeling of insecurity that tingled down my spine. It was a dark and heavy presence, somehow it managed to give me the creeps. I couldn't clearly identify it, I just knew it. It wasn't a great feeling.

Underneath us, Daltara was shining with its blue hue typical of watery planets. Somewhere, down there, there was my wife. I tried to hold back a frustrated groan as the last of the twenty TIE exploded but it didn't work that good.

Oh the computer screen appeared a worried message from Artoo. "I'm fine Artoo, I'm just worried. You know, when everything is too quiet to be true?"

If he could have nodded, he would have. A high-pitched chirp expressed his agreement.

"There's something wrong, I can feel it..."

"Calm down Red Five, everything is going to be just fine!" replied Obi-Wan from his ship.

I took a deep, steadying breath. "I don't know...it's something..." I whispered, retaking my place in the line-up.

I tried to concentrate a bit more, I felt the Force strong and vigorous all around me, flowing like a river. That feeling was quickly replaced by a thick sense of quietness, mainly brought by the knowledge that my Master was again at my side, and that we were fighting together as ten years before.

"Nothing. Nothing, let's get on with the plan." I tried to shove that bad feeling away.

"Bombers, you're now at fire range!" came the voice of Captain Antilles from the main control freight. "You can begin the attack now."

"Let the revels begin!" shouted Ahsoka as we opened a shower of blaster fire on the structures and on the TIE-Fighters.

"Let the fire be started!" I soon followed.

From that moment on, I went on autopilot for what it seemed an eternity. The heavy ships started their shower of blasters and finally the Empire decided it was time to release the hounds. Probably fifty TIE-Fighters came out of their hangars and their defensive turrets started shooting. It seemed like they had waited until we started our attack before responding, don't know why. Probably they wanted to see if we were really intentioned to strike.

We were.

I was concentrated on my task, I was protecting the left side of the battle scheme, trying to end every chase with a TIE-Fighter as fast as I could then throwing myself into another fight. The more we managed to destroy their ships, the more came out of their hangars. Our warships were doing their job magnificently, and by fifteen minutes after the beginning of the operation already two of the seven building areas were destroyed and the soon to be completed Super Star Destroyers, still inactive, were on their way to be transformed into wrecks.

I was chasing a TIE-Fighter when Artoo beeped a slightly sarcastic phrase. "If all Imperial Pilots fly like that, it won't be too hard to overthrow them!"

I chuckled, rather amused even if I tried to remain concentrated on the chase. That particular pilot was a tricky one to strike down. "Let's not hang on such a thin hope Artoo."

Another long and high-pitched chirping. "I might only be a droid but I don't like this situation too much. I preferred when the Republic was at peace."

"Eh, don't tell me Artoo!" I groaned as I surpassed a TIE-Fighter I had just destroyed.

Anyway, everything was going just fine. They didn't expect that kind of attack power, and as I followed one of the heavier ships, the so called B-Wing starfighters, while it bombed the surface of one of the many wings of the spaceport. One of the torpedoes hit an energy pipeline, engaging a chain reaction that practically disemboweled (sorry for the gory metaphor) the left side of the building structure.

That was a great shot, even though it was only good luck. But it gave me a good idea.

"Artoo, open a private channel with Green and Red Leader!" I asked.

A couple of seconds later I heard some statics charges than the low and gruff voice of Green Leader, head of the B-Wing squad. "What do you want Red Five, I'm busy here!"

"Let him speak!" said Ahsoka, quite angrily.

"Tell your squad to aim to energy pipeline! They will do more damage without losing so many missiles!" I told him as I rolled on to the left, practically interjecting a TIE as it followed one of the X-Wings and shooting one of the TIE wings right at the juncture with the hull. Not a bad shot indeed, considering that I was talking!

"Pipelines? What are you talking about?" he asked.

"One of the bombers hit a power collecting node just a moment ago and it opened a huge crack in the main structure. Practically the left side of the shipyard is destroyed and useless now. Even the turrets are down now." I replied.

"How do we recognize them?"

On the translating screen appeared a quick message from Artoo. "Astromech droids are perfectly able to identify and aim at the power collecting nodes." he said. "It's offensive that he hasn't thought about that! So rude!"

I almost burst into a loud laughter reading his comment. Sometimes he was even better than Threepio regarding understanding humans.

"Let your droids aim for you. Just let them engage them and fire." I said once I was calm again.

"Thank you Red Five. You've got a good eye!"

"Too many space battle during the Clone Wars I guess!"

Green leader closed the communication, but Ahsoka remained. "You haven't changed a little Master." she said.

"I try. Being a pilot is was I've done best in my life! I managed to screw up everything else!"

"You didn't screw up anything! Come on, let's get these fucktards some challenge!"

After that, I closed the private channel and went back to my own quest. At that point of the battle, the initial line up had changed and most of the B-Wing bombers were scattered all around the space station, followed by a two or three X-Wing to protect them, while ten or more ships were following the remains of the TIE-Fighters. It was too easy.

Too easy because it was impossible that a shipyard of that scale could be so poorly protected and defended. There were deflector shields powerful enough they could push us back anytime, not to mention that they could have used more defensive turrets. Let me say that my suggestion about the power nodes worked awesomely, because the bombers were able to destroy the better of the base in about half an hour, still, there was something really wrong.

That feeling of impending danger I had sensed back before the beginning of the attack still hanged on my head, I felt something in the airless space around me that left me still unsure of what would have come later. Still, I fought with all my ability and concentration, scoring an impressive amount of kills and damage, according to Artoo. He was keeping the count of everything I hit. Later that day, when everything was over, he revealed that my accuracy score was incredibly close to 100%, even without the computer aiming system. See what that little barrel can do? I didn't really know he kept a score of every battle we had participated.

Anyway, as I cartwheeled towards a Tie-Fighter that was apparently fleeing from battle after he had taken some damage, I felt again the dark presence that gave me the creeps. I tried to ignore it but it was getting more and more heavy in my mind, twisting the Force around me so it was really hard to remain focused and maintain a certain level of control on my X-Wing.

Then, something clicked. Through the Force I felt something that resembled an angry scream, though it was muffled by some kind of mechanic device. It echoed in my head, but it felt like it was real, like it was right there in my ship. Like a haunting presence, it made me shiver heavily as I recognize that echo in the Force.

"...Vader." I whispered, hoping no one heard me.

"What?" asked someone I could not identify.

Vader was close. Closer than what I had even imagined he would have been. Damn it, that would have made things more complicated. If there was something Aster was good at, was piloting. That wasn't good.

"Gold Leader we have a problem!" I almost shouted, a slightly scared hint in my voice. Even Artoo detected it and a series of question marks appeared on the computer screen.

"I sense it too Red Five." He replied quickly. On my left, I saw his ship making a quick veer to the right to avoid an exploding TIE-Fighter he had just hit. "Just stay calm and see what happens. We don't know if he's gonna fly."

"Who are you talking about?" asked Green Leader.

I took a deep breath before speaking that name. "Darth Vader."

"What?" came the overlapped voices of almost all the pilots still alive. It was turning out to be an easy attack, at least up there in open space, but we had our losses too. We weren't perfect or immortal after all.

"My friends, now, stay put and concentrate on what you have in front of you and we'll see." came the soft, calm voice of Obi-Wan. Damn, his mere presence was enough to make me feel a bit better. Eight years ago, well, he would have made me even angrier or more scared. Incredible!

It was then that a new swarm of TIE-Fighters came out of the last hangar left on the space port. And it was a huge swarm. At least 150 ships. And this time they attacked with all their abilities. We had lost many X-Wings and a couple of B-Wing bombers, our defensive lines was crippled comparing to the incoming amount of enemies. Things didn't get any better when they managed to make six defensive turrets functioning again. Without warning, they shoot at full power, and one of the X-Wins exploded just above me. It was a dreadful scene. So many ships incoming and the turrets shooting again. That wasn't getting anywhere good.

With a swift maneuver I managed to disengage my ship from the targeting computer of one of the TIEs, I cut speed and once it was ahead of me, I shoot it up, making it blow up in a cloud of compressed gas and propeller. The force of the explosion rocked my ship as I surpassed the wrecked thing, not to mention that the fire that arose from the ship blinded me for a couple of seconds, allowing another TIE to engage me and start shooting at me.

"Where the fuck do they come from?" I asked more at myself than anyone else. All around me I saw ships blowing up, ours and theirs alike. What it looked like a total blue milk run was becoming a rather tricky situation.

And in tricky situation, I had a lot of fun. I was already preoccupied enough, I needed a distraction. I tightened my hold on the wheel and veered straight towards a small crowd of at least 20 TIEs, on an apparent collision course.

"What the hell are you doing Red Five?" asked my Blue Leader.

"What I do best!" I replied harshly as I opened fire on them. I was rushing right straight in front of them, my blaster cannons in rapid fire mode. Artoo had a magnificent job with those armaments. They were as powerful as the originals but faster.

Before I veered up and surpassed them, six of them were damaged and two had exploded, sending debris and other stuff hitting the others and causing more damage.

"Nice sweep Anakin!" howled Obi-Wan. "Now get out of the way, it's my turn!"

I turned the ship upwards and watched, still upside down, as my former Master swept through the enemy ships and decimated them. He might even not like flying, but he was a damn good pilot nonetheless.

Our combined attacks scattered them, breaking their tight line up enough so Red Ten, Blue Four and Six could fly through them and released two rockets each, destroying six ships and at least damaging all of the remnants, allowing a quick but deadly sweep from another couple of Blue Squad guys.

Soon after that, me and Obi-Wan, almost reading in each other minds, flew side by side towards another gathering of TIEs that were chasing two of our bombers and combining a tight tailspin flight on my side mentioned to confuse them and scatter their line up farther apart and a quick and precise shower of blasters from my Master, we managed to make them disengage their combined attack on our ships then we proceeded to blow them up.

"Watch out Master! Right behind you!" I shouted as a TIE chased him, shooting and getting really close to hit him.

"I'm trying to leave him behind but this one's stubborn!"

"Keep avoiding him, I'm coming!"

I quickly moved the X-Wing towards the two contenders and tried to disorient the clone pilot flying through the space between the two ships. Apparently it worked because he halted almost immediately and I cartwheeled backwards and shot it right at the juncture of the wings with the cockpit. That was their weak spot, and it was rather easy to aim at.

"All done Master!" I laughed as I started chasing another TIE-Fighter that was right beside me.

"Just like the old times!" he replied as cheerful as me. "Now come with me, I have an idea."

"Just give me a moment!" I grunted as I pulled on the wheel and rushed away from the explosions blasting all around me. "Here I am!" I said when I found him

"Ahsoka, come here, I think we can do the difference here!" he stated.

"Coming!" I heard her voice ringing happily as her ship got beside mine.

"Now, I'm the bait, you do the cross style attack. The one that Master Koon taught you." he explained as we flew a bit outside the main battlefield.

"Yes Master." we said obediently.

"Now, let's get back in the brawl."

For endless minutes, we just acted like that. A huge number of enemies jumped into the trap with both their boots. It was so easy...that manoeuvrings were a Jedi prerogative, not the Clone's. They weren't aware of our tricks. Thank the Force for small favors.

We managed to blow up at least sixty of their ships, not to mention that we had a lot of fun.

I was so engrossed with that criss-crossed style of attack that I almost didn't notice the huge explosion that signaled that our job was done. The shipyard was destroyed, and so were those Super Star Destroyer they were building. Through the comlink came the deafening screams and yells of all the pilots of all squads, as we flew around the wrecking station.

Damn, it was a great feeling. For a moment, the joy for the victory we had achieved replaced the bitter taste of that dark sensation that still haunted me. It was thrilling! I felt a shiver running down my spine as I made the starfighter spin in a tight helix, while shooting the last TIE-Fighter down.

But that feeling of joy was soon to be replaced with something else, as soon as a voice filled my comlink. It was Captain Antilles.

"Gold Leader, Red Five, get back to the cruiser now, we've got a problem." he said plainly.

That shiver of joy was soon replaced by a feeling of cold that wasn't natural. "What's going on?" asked Obi-Wan before I could even muster a thought.

"We have a problem with the land troops, we need your assistance."

"What?" I shouted, that cold sensation now took over me completely.

"Get back and we'll fill you in."

A private communication channel request appeared on my screen, I pushed a button to accept it. It was Obi-Wan.

"Calm down Anakin, let's see what's happening before you start panicking." he said, as calm as ever.

I held my breath for a moment before I spoke. "Yes Master." I sighed again. "I'll try."

"Don't worry Anakin." I saw his X-Wing flying beside mine. "Everything will be alright."

I nodded, sure that he could see me. Then, silently, with a lump in my throat that threatened to smother me, we returned to the main cruiser, as ordered. My head was spinning. I barely remembered how to breath, that wait was killing me.

We let the others finish the job, flashes of explosions reflected on the silvery surface of my ships, as well as on Obi-Wan's, as we flew as fast as we could towards the main cruiser. We received our permission to land and as soon as we got inside the hangar and the heavy pressurized door was closed, I opened the cockpit, unfastened the seat belts and jumped off the X-Wing. Artoo soon followed me, landing with a loud bang on the metallic floor of the hangar. I tried to arrange my clothes as best as I could as Obi-Wan walked towards me. It was so good to see him after so much time.

"Did they tell you anything else?" I asked as we walked towards the door.

He shook his head. "No. Just that Darrick arrived ten minutes ago with really bad news. I don't really know what."

I ran my hands through my hair, pulling them back from my face. "What if something happened to her?"

"Let's not think for the worst. You don't know what happened." we stepped into a lift and he pushed a button to the main commanding room.

"I felt Vader's presence. If he wasn't on the shipyard, he must be down on the planet base!"

"We don't know Anakin!" he put his hand on my shoulder and made me turn to look straight at him. "Stay calm and breath, don't panic. If there's something we don't need now is you panicking, alright?"

I nodded, trying to calm down a little. "You're right Master." I whispered, still unsure of myself. "You're right."

He chuckled, slightly amused. "You've grown Anakin. You're a man now."

I nodded again, sniffling. "I missed you Master."

He dragged me towards him and hugged me, brotherly. "I missed you too Anakin. Everyone missed you."

"Thank you. For everything you've done for them."

He patted my back, trying to cheer me up. "I had to. I swore I would protect them, and so I did. Strange enough, it was an easier task than what I had imagined. They have behaved after all, all of them."

"Even the twins?" I asked as the lift doors opened.

"Most of all they did. Except for when they were barely toddlers, when we were Senator Organa's guests, that Leia used the Force unconsciously and made a minor mess. That's it. They're good kids."

"Everyone keeps telling me. At least everyone that met them!"

As soon as we entered the main control room, everyone looked at us while Darrick quickly walked towards us, and by the look on his face the news weren't good.

What I didn't know was the fact that the news he brought would send my world crumbling to pieces in a split second. His words were like a knife straight in my heart, as if destiny had deliberately decided to strike me with all its weapons.

"They've taken her."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last update before I leave. I'm going to Slovenia for ten days, it's my only vacation time of the year. I know I leave you with a cliffhanger (and a bad one) but don't worry. Everything will be alright.


	29. Slowmotion Suicide

**Chapter 29 – Slowmotion Suicide**

It was pure luck that I didn't suffer for a heart attack right there and then. Suddenly I couldn't breath anymore, I felt like someone was crushing my throat in an invisible, incredibly strong hold, taking away all the air in the room. I took a step backwards and leaned on the wall. "It can't be..."

"Anakin, please don't..." started Obi-Wan.

"Don't tell me I don't have to panic because now I have all the rights to panic!" my voice sounded strange even to me, it was strangled, I was on the verge of tears and there was no way I could manage to stop them. I could barely breath, it felt like having a huge weight on my chest.

"Alright, this time you have all the rights to panic but..." started Obi-Wan as I slipped down the wall till I was sitting on the floor, my face buried in my hands, as I sobbed uncontrollably. He knelt beside me. I knew he was about to say something but instead he remained silent, simply letting me vent out my frustration.

"I was so close..." I mumbled after endless moments.

"You still are. She's down there and now we're gonna find her." he replied.

"But what if they hurt her..."

He pushed my forehead up from my hands and looked straight into my eyes. "Search your feelings Anakin, you know they didn't do anything to her."

I tried to concentrate, though in that mental state it was almost impossible and he was right, there was nothing in the flow of the Force stating she was hurt. He was right, she was fine at the moment. Probably, and luckily, the Imperials didn't know her real identity, otherwise they would have probably executed her there and then. Still they could find out, and the thought made me sick.

"It's just that...eight years ago I sacrificed everything to not let this happen and now..."

He shook his head. "Come on now Anakin, the battle isn't lost yet. Get a grip on yourself and act like a Jedi!" he practically ordered, and by the tone of his voice e was damn serious about it. "Do you want to sit here and let them take her away from you again? Come on, that's not the Anakin Skywalker I taught and raised!"

He was right, yet, that feeling of impending danger I had sensed earlier still gripped tightly on me, I still barely breathed and I could feel my hear racing as if I had just come out the arena of Geonosis. "I'm trying Master."

"Let him breath for a moment, Master Kenobi. He's been through a lot, this is a really hard blow." interjected Darrick. "He needs a moment to recover. Give him a minute and he'll be alright."

Tentatively, I slowly stood up straight, breathing as deep as I could in order to steady myself. "Where are the nearest restroom?" I asked.

"Turn right then second corridor on the left." said one of the officers while he watched closely at an holo of the battlefield we had just left.

Still slowly, I followed his instructions with both Darrick and Obi-Wan not too far from me, but as soon as I was out of sight I rushed to the restrooms and there I repeated the mess I made that night I got drunk on Dxun. Only that this time it was that kind of nausea that comes from stress factors. It had slowly built since the moment Darrick gave me the news and now it was unbearable. I retched a couple of times before I felt a little better, at least enough to stand up straight.

As I came out of the stall, I saw Darrick and Obi-Wan standing on the doorstep, waiting for me, their faces a mask of worry. Silently, I opened the water and washed my face and mouth, trying to get that awful taste away.

When I thought I was ready, I closed the water flow and dried my face with my sleeve.

"Seems like that Senator needs to be rescued again!" I said, a brief smile made its way on my face.

That slightly ironic statement lit up Obi-Wan's face too. "That's my Padawan! Come on, let's get back to the control room and we'll see what we can do!"

With me ahead of the others, we returned to the main control room just in time to see Ahsoka and Aleha coming out of the lift. They both looked slightly worried but apparently they were reassured to see me standing up and alive. Thank the Force they had missed my burnout.

"I've got the recordings of the battle!" said Aleha. She was one of the leaders of the infantry troops, she had just returned from the base from what I could guess. And considering the heavily stained tunic and the hair sticking to her face, she had obviously fought down there.

"Can someone leave one of the holoprojector free? We have a job to do!" said Darrick in such an authoritarian tone I could barely recognize my tame, quiet friend.

As soon as three naval officers left one the holostation free, we gathered around it and watched as Aleha pulled a holodisc from her pocket and pushed it into its drive. Soon after that, an updated holo of that had happened during the land attack appeared in front of us.

"Now, everything went fine before a squad of sappers blow our coverage here." she pointed at a protection wall near one of the main control bases. "And managed to sneak in and arrest all of those inside this base. Then they returned to the base and sent an holo that announced they had hostages and if we continued to attack, they would kill them all." she looked up at me. "Included Padmè. Therefor we stopped any kind of offensive action, we just kept them under a tight surveillance until Darrick and I could sneak up here to inform you."

"Thanks the Force the twins weren't with her..." whispered Obi-Wan.

"By the way where are they?" I asked, slightly worried about them.

"They're safe on Naboo with their grandparents. We escorted them there a couple of days ago." he replied, still looking closely at the hologram in front of us.

"Well, let's leave them there." I added. "No need to make them worry about their mom. Where do you think they keep them?" I asked then.

Aleha and Darrick both pointed to a construction at the farthest end of the holo. "Here. They managed to keep this part of the base, which is the most of it, with cell blocks and armories and whatever they need to survive until back up arrive. We don't have much time."

"Roughly we have two hours before the back ups arrive." stated Ahsoka. "They won't come until they know the shipyard area is safe, it's the procedure. We can try to keep the area occupied with some random incursion for the next two hours but I don't know if we can do more."

"And we need solid plan before we proceed, they doubled protection and even if we've been besieging them for two hours now they won't let it go anytime soon."

I knew it wouldn't be easy, but not like this.

From what I could see from the plans of the base, it was an old republican installment converted into a military base from the Empire. Probably it served as a support for the shipyard, maybe it was a storage for materials and a dormitories for workers. It was formed by three buildings, all connected through a maze of halls and corridors, some underground and some above. All these buildings had their own securities measures, like perimeter walls, cameras and defensive turrets. Each building had its energy source, food and water storage, independent sewers and anything that made it rather hard to take, considering that if the assailants managed to take one of the buildings they still had two of them to take shelter in. Two of the buildings were already controlled by the Alliance, but the third one was still in control of the Imperial troops, and Aleha had ordered to stop any aggressive action and just keep them surrounded so they couldn't move.

It was a rough situation, but we were running out of time. We needed to figure out a plan fast or my hopes to have my family back together would burn to ashes in no time. And probably Palpatine at that point would make his move to turn me to the Dark Side. And I couldn't afford that.

We studied the holo in silence for minutes, everyone of us trying to make something up as fast as we could but every standard rescue mission had the numbers to become a huge mess that could kill us all.

We had to work silently in order to sneak into the base, we couldn't afford a full force straight forward attack with infantry and landspeeders. It would have ruined everything.

There was only one way to resolve that mess.

An one-man-army style attack.

And if I prepared fast enough, I could have the time to find everyone, bring them to safety and possibly go looking for Vader.

As I played the various scenarios in my mind, imagining every kind of problem that I could have found, I grew more and more sure about it. It was the only solution. Someone could describe it as a slow-motion suicide, because I could have succeeded but still there was a high risk of dying down there, even if I managed to set the prisoners free.

Well, since I had scarified myself once, I could it twice.

"Master, I have an idea!" I started then, when I was sure about my decision.

All of them looked at me as if they had just seen an unknown form of alien. "What?" he asked.

"I'm going alone. No back up, no help from anyone. Just me. I'm gonna sneak in there and find my way to the cell block. Once I have all of the prisoners safe and sound, I'll call and Ahsoka's squad can bomb down the base." I said. "It might take some time, but it's the only safe way in."

They remained silent for a moment, their eyes fixed on mine. From the look on their faces, I knew they thought I was trying to be the hero of the situation, that I was a moron showing off and that I would surely die before I even managed to reach the first perimeter wall. Well, from the outside it might even look like this, but I knew what I was doing.

"Are you sure?" asked Ahsoka. "It's a high risk you're taking. We're talking about huge stakes!"

"It's my wife we're talking about Ahsoka." I replied sternly, wondering where the heck I could find that concentration in a moment like that. "And I can't let her down. I can't let my kids down. I have to save her!"

"It's a suicide, you know that?" asked Darrick from the other side of the station.

I nodded. "I know. But it's the only way in or out. They said that if they see any kind of mass attack they would kill the hostages. I can sneak in without being noticed."

"How?" asked Aleha.

"Same way I escaped from prison. I'll set something up." I replied. "I only need couple of comlinks."

The plan was easy. Taking it as slow as I could, I would approach the base alone, leaving the X-Wing with Artoo not too far away in case something went bad, and hack my way in. In theory, it would have worked just fine, now, I only needed some help from the Force to get concentrated enough.

It wasn't an easy task, but the plan was forming in my head as seconds passed. I had memorized the layout of the base, so it should have been easier to find my way. They equipped me with a hidden homing beacon, so they could find me every time they wanted and attached a similar device to my ship and Artoo. We were all locked into a very safe wireless network, therefor it should have been impossible for the Imperials to scan my signal.

If I managed to silence as many troops as I could and do it fast, I had good chances to arrive to the cell block unnoticed.

I was sitting in my X-Wing, getting ready to leave, when Obi-Wan walked towards me and jumped on the ladder on the side of my ship.

"Are you sure you want to go alone?" he asked. "Last time I let you go alone for an assignment you came back with a severed arm and married." she smiled.

I chuckled at his joke. "I know. And yes, I'm sure. It's not that I don't want you around. It's just that I feel it will be easier to do this alone."

He shrugged his shoulders. "It's your life we're talking about."

"No, it's my wife we're talking about. I can't let her down there." I said. "Not right now that she's so close. And that I know she's safe."

He patted my shoulder. "Good. Call if you need help. And don't try to show off too much."

"I won't Master."

He nodded. "Good. My the Force be with you then. Take her home." he pushed the cockpit window closed and jumped off, letting me enough space to maneuver the X-Wing out of the hanger.

"I will Master. I will." I replied to no one but myself and Artoo, since he couldn't hear me.

Taking two, deep, steadying breaths, I waited for the permission to set off and when it was granted, I headed towards the hangar door.

There was no way back this time. I would find her at any cost. And I would risk my own life to save hers, just like eight years before.


	30. Far Too Human To Let Go

**Chapter 30 – Far Too Human To Let Go**

I flew a couple of times around the base. It was situated in a thick forest, in the midst of tall trees and just beside a rather tortuous river. The man that had designed and built it was very wise to choose that place, strategically speaking, it was the best place in the zone. Easy to defend, with plenty of water and a thick forest all around to hide it. I found a good place to land and slowly started my decent, as Artoo searched for any Imperial presence all around the landing spot.

Apparently, they were all closed in the base to protect it. That was good.

As the X-Wing touched ground, Artoo opened the cockpit and I unfastened the seat belts then jumped off. I looked all around me while I donned my cloak. "Artoo, please, take good care of it. If someone approaches, take the ship away from here. I don't want them to find it, understood?"

He quickly beeped as he agreed. He had just set foot, or better, wheel, on the grassy ground, and he was already checking on the engines and the shields. That little barrel was tireless, there was no way to distract him from circuits and machines as soon as he had a spare moment.

"And, please, can you show me the plans of the base again?"

He swung is dome towards me and pointed his holoprojector on the ground, a moment later the same holo Aleha had showed me appeared. I had two chances to enter. One was a small rear entrance on the south-western side of the base. It was a small door that was rarely opened but with a good lightsaber cut could be opened in no time. The other was a water pipe, an artificial canal that brought water from the river to the base storage tank. That was my second option. Otherwise, if non of them would have worked, I could always jump from one of the trees on the walls. After all, I had to find a way in!

On the other hand I had to find a way out for all the prisoners. From what I could see from the cell block there was only one safe way to get out and I had to assure it was clear before I could bring them out. There was a corridor, three levels above, that ran perpendicularly the main hallway from the cell block and it lead straight to a storage room connected to the part of the base that was in the hands of the Rebellion. That was my way out. It was rather far from the block, but it was the safest way to get them to safety. I had to make sure that there was no Imperial presence though.

"Good. Keep an eye on the comlink, if I need help I'm gonna call you. You ok with that?"

I don't think it would be suitable to translate literally what he said, let's just say that if he had legs he would have kicked me towards the base.

"Alright I'm going don't worry! I'm going!" I pulled the hood up over my head and headed towards the base.

I was about a mile away, it didn't took too long even if the bushes were rather thick and it was a bit hard to walk around. The trees were high and thick enough to give me a good coverage in case there were security cameras or whatever.

Deliberately slowly I approached the base and as soon as sighted the perimeter wall I slowed down even more. I didn't want to be detected.

When I reached the edge of the forest, I knelt down behind one of the biggest trees around me and peeked towards the wall. I could see at least six troopers and two turrets in the span of something more than one hundred yards. That place was heavily guarded. Sithspit, I had to go through the other way.

Which meant going through the tunnel that brought clean water from the nearby river to the main water storage. It was a longer trip, but it allowed me to sneak behind them without being noticed. And stealth was the key for the success of the operation. I had to be quick, since ahead of me there was a long swim.

I walked just a couple of yards behind the forest edge and reached the river. The entrance of the artificial canal that entered the base was south of my position, against the stream. It wouldn't be easy but with a little help from the Force, it was possible. I had had swam in worse places in the end.

I reached into one of the main pockets of my utility belt and took my aquata breather. I hoped it still worked after so many years. Once I placed it in my mouth, I dived in the water stream and swam against the stream. It was a little harder than what I thought, most of all because my clothes soon became drenched and incredibly heavy. At least the breather worked fine and I could breath normally, even if it took me a moment to adjust.

Suddenly all that training and workout I went through the flying course came to hand. I reached the entrance of the tunnel earlier than what I had thought. When I found it, I gave a quick glance out of the water, just to see if there was someone guarding that rear entrance. Luckily enough, there was no one on that side of the wall. Thank the Force for small favors. I pushed my drenched hair from my eyes and took a look around. The tunnel was right in front of me, the entrance was half filled with water going down the drain. The tunnel was barely wide enough to crawl through, and I didn't have much space to move considering that I'm not a short guy.

After thirty or more yards of crawling in the moldy tunnel, I reached a protective grid. Carefully, I cut it away with my lightsaber and slowly I crawled forward. The tunnel from that point on was wide enough walk, even if I had to duck or I would bump my head on the roof. I was hip-deep in water, but at least I was standing.

I was really dark in there, and I had to use a flashlight. From what I could barely see the tunnel went on for an undefined length, so I just kept walking. It reminded me that day, on the Invisible Hand, when me and Obi-Wan in order to run away from Grievous and his henchdroids had cut our way to the fuel tank of the ship. Nice idea. At least this time it was only water. Moldy and incredibly cold, but only water.

That tunnel seemed endless, but after what seemed like a whole lifetime I found an opening on my left. It wasn't even closed with any kind of door or whatever. I climbed the three steps of a rusty ladder and stepped in what looked like the main storage of the base. There were boxes of various dimensions and durasteel barrels scattered everywhere, piled up around the walls and whatever. That was obviously a storage of some kind. I opened one of the plasteel boxes to find it was full of proximity mines.

Stupid Imperial people. Never, never, put explosive in such a weak defeated part of the base. A Jedi or anyone with a blowtorch could always pass through that grid!

It gave me an idea. I took two packs of mines and approached the door of the room. I waited a couple of seconds, concentrating so I could feel if there was someone on the other side. I could hear footsteps all around me, but nothing right out of that door. There were troopers on the floors above mine, but no one on my same level. I could get out safely.

I opened the door and stepped out. I tried to straighten my drenched clothes and hair. I had to wring my cloak because it was dripping. Once it was at least decent to wear, even though it hanged rather ungracefully on my shoulders, I donned it again and pulled the hood up over my face. It was time to get into action.

But things go never how you expect them to do. Never.

If finding the right entrance was a bit difficult, making my way into the base was even harder. It was a freaking maze and with all the activity going on through the corridors it was a bit hard to find the right directions, considering that any time I spotted or heard of felt someone coming closer I had to change direction or hide into a room. It happened actually a couple of times, once I was too late and I had to use a mind trick to avoid any kind of shootout. Unfortunately it didn't work always. Some clones were weaker than others, and with those specific clones, I had to use the force. Not always THE Force, I mean that sometimes I had to beat them.

Once I managed to distract a trooper in order to move over, but that was just luck. A couple of times I had to actually break their necks and hide their bodies, stuff like that. I tried to remain as stealthy as I could, but sometimes I just didn't manage to be invisible. As drenched as I was, I was making a lot of noise, more than what I wanted.

All around me I could feel the feverish movements of troopers and soldiers, and the more I walked inside that place the more I grew convinced that Vader was close. Too close for my tastes.

His echo in the Force was almost unbearable. I could feel him and his evil resonance was twisting the Force all around me, darkening it far beyond my own imagination. And I mean, I saw what the Dark Side can do, I experienced its side effects a couple of times, I knew what I was feeling. I focused on my task though and went on.

I had to push my limits to bear that echo, but I still could stand it. Damn, the last time I had met him, we almost killed each other, but he wasn't angry at the time. Right then, in that moment, I could feel his wrath. Palpatine must had sent him there to watch over his base, but we had fooled him somehow. He was really pissed off, I could feel it. But I had someone to fight for, and I was too human to let go. I just couldn't. I had swore to the Force to protect her at all costs, and I couldn't let go of her just because I felt my nemesis right behind me. I just couldn't. I stopped for a moment, took a deep breath and shoved Vader's thought away, replacing it with the strong, indestructible determination to find her and save her. To have her back with me. That though held me together and helped me to concentrate even if the Force around me was moving so quickly that sometimes I felt my head spin.

Anyway, I found the stair case and walked to another floor. There was much more activity there, I had to be careful. Suddenly I heard someone approaching and hid in a room on my left. Too late. He had noticed something moving and fastened his pace.

"Damn..." I whispered. I grabbed the hilt of my lightsaber and waited.

He opened the door and peeked in, the barrel of his blaster pointed far away from me. I couldn't afford to wait too much, I moved as fast as I could and using the Force I snatched his blaster from his hold.

"What the f..."

He couldn't finish his curse. I took a step towards him lit my lightsaber. It pierced his chest right through his heart, killing him instantly. He fell to the floor but I was fast enough to support his dead body before it clattered like a broken engine. I dragged him and placed him as gently as I could on the floor, then I searched his utility belt. He didn't have the keys I needed, but he had an holodisc programmed with a holomap of the base. That was useful.

He had another useful thing. An Imperial comlink. I took his helmet off and stripped it of the headset. I didn't need the mic, but the receiver was rather useful. Through it, I could listen to their conversation and discover if I had been spotted or not.

I plugged the earphone in and then exited. The corridor was empty. Great. I was free to move around.

I studied the map for a moment and headed south. There was another staircase that led straight to the cell block. Still carefully, I headed there, this time I walked a bit faster. It was one of those situations in which the only rules is the "be quick or be dead" one. All one-man-army operations were a matter of haste.

I opened the door of the staircase and practically ran upstairs, two levels up. Still no Imperial activity there. That was strange. Sure, they needed to check on the prisoners and the Rebels outside but...only one trooper since I took a step in the base?

That day was becoming stranger and stranger by the moment. I was about to open another door when I felt a strange echo through the Force, something strange, a mix of fear and determination, mixed with something new, something I hadn't felt in years. Something that I felt every time I was with Padmè. She was close, and she was frightened.

I had to move!

I practically burst the door open only to find it full of troopers and a couple of Imperial officers.

"Oh shit..." I mumbled as I ignited my lightsaber when they started firing upon me.

"Take him down!" shouted one of the officers.

Easily enough, I reflected their shots, rebounding them towards the sender, killing or maiming many of them in the process while I walked through them. Each step I took, one or more troopers fell on the floor, dead. I left the two officers last.

One of them drew his gun from its holster but I quickly slashed his forearm away, and watched as he fell on the ground too, howling in pain. The other officer, terrified, ran towards the other door trying to escape, but with a quick push through the Force I sent him down with the others, although alive and still in one piece.

I walked towards him, kicking the maimed officer unconscious in the process. Once I was at his side I knelt beside him. I watched as he tried to crawl away from me but I stopped him, grabbing the hem of his uniform. "You are?" I asked, as calm as I could.

"Lieutenant Piet." he stammered.

"Nice to meet you Lieutenant. Now, I know it's not the better way to get to know each other but I'm in a hurry to get to a certain place. Would you please tell me where is the cell block?" I tried the mind trick on him, and by the change on his face, it worked perfectly fine.

"Third door on the right, take the lift and go to the second underground level. You need a special key to get to that floor." he replied, docile as a bantha cub.

"Do you have that key?" I asked.

"Yes." He fished into his left pocket and took a magnetic card out. "Here it is."

I took the card from his hand. "Thank you Lieutenant. I really appreciate your help. Now, if someone questions you about this mess, tell them it was Anakin Skywalker's doing. They will know who you're talking about."

"Yes sir. I will do sir."

"Good. Now, why don't you get some sleep? You seem tired."

It was so easy! And I admit it, I had some fun fucking his mind up. When I left him, he was sleeping like a kid.

As I followed his instructions and headed to the lift, I listened to the trooper's comlink. Someone was trying to get in touch with the troopers of that floor, because the noises of the shootout had been heard practically in the whole base. It was the main problem with blasters. They were as noisy as hell.

When I took the lift, I inserted the key in its place and pushed the button. It took it a while to get to the floor but as soon as I stepped out of the lift I found the hallway filled with other troopers.

"Oh come on! A man can't even try to sneak in unnoticed?" I grumbled as I replayed the scene again, igniting my saber when they fired and killing them one by one. They fell on the floor like a handful of toy soldiers. These new clones were crappy specimen. I missed my old Fett's clones. Those were true warriors, like their source.

I hacked my way through the small crowd and pushed the corpses aside. That's the worst side of close quarter fights. The mess you leave behind. I checked if there was a survivor but there weren't. I had pushed one so hard against the wall that his helmet had cracked in a couple of spots. And those were considered almost indestructible. Well, they were saving money even on military supplies.

I couldn't set them free now though. But many of them were banging on the walls asking what was going on. And I had to tell them something!

"Wait here, I'm here to save you. Just give me a moment!" I shouted.

Alright, now it was only a matter of cleaning the way out, and up to that moment, it was the easiest thing to do. The way was already clear. I fear that I had already killed every trooper of the floor.

The way out was free. Thank the Force for small favors. The famous corridor and door were three levels up, and there was only one way to reach that level. The lift. One way in, one way out. It was a sort of law, that sentence kept coming up every time I had to do something that day!

Remember the proximity mines? Well, I had six of them and I placed them in strategic spots through all the way to the elevator. A security measure more than an actual mean to hurt troopers. Those bombs made an extreme noise once they detonated, and I could hear it even from three levels below.

I was growing more and more impatient, through the comlink I heard things I didn't like, stuff like " _Send more troops to the cell block_." or " _We have an intruder. Find him and kill him_!" I didn't have much time left. I had an entire bombing squad waiting for me to give them an order and I had been in there for almost an hour now and I had to get them to safety.

Once I had set the last mine, I rushed back to the elevator and then down to the cell block.

"Ahsoka, do you copy?" I asked through one of the comlinks.

"Here Ahsoka." she replied. "How are you?"

"Soaked and I had to kill too many troopers." I replied.

"Did they discover you?"

"No, at least they don't know who's the intruder. Listen, call the troops on the conquered side of the base, I'm about to open the cells."

"Good. Call us when you're out."

"Will do. See ya!"

Using the same key Piet gave me, I opened the first cell. The man inside jumped as he saw the door sliding open. Well, I guess that even the sight of a soaked, mud covered Jedi with his lightsaber turned on wasn't the best after that kind of scare.

"I'm Atton Rosh, I'm here to save you!" I said sternly. I don't know why I used my fake name. It just came out easily.

"Who?" he asked, still scared. He was as pale as a clean sheet.

I shrugged my shoulders. "We don't have time. Just trust me, I'm a Jedi, now get out of here and grab one of those blasters. You might need it." I replied. "Get to the elevator and wait for me. I have a plan to get you out."

"How did you get in here?" he asked as he picked up one of the blasters.

I opened one of the doors. Still no trace of her. "I crawled through a water pipe, come on let's get out of here!" from personal experience, people who are shocked, scared or worried tend to respond better to a commanding tone, even if it sounds rude or uncaring.

Same scene repeated six times and for six times I had to repeat the instructions until I opened the last door.

"I'm Atton Rosh and..." I stopped mid sentence, totally dumbstruck.

There she was. Safe and sound. Just as I remembered her. As beautiful as ever, stunning even in that dreadful situation. Suddenly, my throat dried and I swear by the Force that I felt my heart skip a beat or two.

"Anakin!"


	31. What It Means To Be Free

**Chapter 31 – What It Means To Be Free**

" _Anakin!"_

My name echoed in the cramped cell for what seemed to be an eternity as we just stayed there, facing each other. It felt like after being electrocuted. I just couldn't move, speak or even breath, I was completely dumb. Damn, I had found her. Finally, after so much time...

I just couldn't believe it. It was like living in a dream. I knew she was in that base but after so many years I admit I had almost lost what was left of my hope to find her. After so much time apart, I had come to deal with the concept that the galaxy was too wide and there was always a chance I could never find them and that idea was still rooted in my mind that made that moment surreal. But there she was, alive and well, right in front of me, so close that we were only a step away from each other. And I was stuck there. I couldn't move, like someone had nailed my boots to the floor. And not only I was stuck just a step inside the doorstep, but I'm sure that I was wearing the most idiotic expression. The soaked hair didn't help.

"By the Force..." I whispered, my voice so low I really doubt she head me.

"Anakin..." she repeated, on verge of tears. She closed the distance between us and launched in my arms, and embraced me as tightly as she could. "I can't believe it..."

By the Force, I had almost forgotten how good it felt to be that close to her.

"Believe it or not..." I almost laughed as I tightened my arms around her thin frame. "I found you!"

"I missed so much..." she whispered. I knew she was crying hard, and soon I would follow. "I just..."

"Hush now Angel! I'm here now. And I'm not going anywhere!"

Her hands gripped tightly at the back of my tunic as if her life depended on how strong was her grip on me. It was probably the best sensation I ever had. All at once, I . For endless moments, we just stood there, in each other arms, just...I don't know. I was just re-attuning my perception to her soothing presence, and she...well, she will never admit it, but she was crying like a baby.

And even though it was such a terrible moment, stuck in the cell block of an Imperial military base with other five Rebels to escort to safety, well, we were enjoying it, as if we were all alone in there. The feeling was magical. Suddenly, the twisting presence of Darth Vader was somehow dampened by her closeness, I felt at peace for the first time in years, probably since I left Tatooine twenty one years before. It was really the most powerful feeling I had ever experienced, having her so close again. And it was getting better and better by the moment, as if I was I had an emptied energy supply and it was somehow recharging. Suddenly, I felt my own tears sting behind my eyelids, threatening to fall down like a cascade. And believe me, if we had been in a completely different situation, if we had been safe and far away from the Empire and if I hadn't to rescue six others high ranking officers of the Rebellion, I would have cried just as much as her. And probably we would do something else completely...

But even if we had found our tiny moment of pure heaven, I knew time was running out and we had to move. We couldn't afford to wast any second, considering what I was hearing through the Imperial comlink.

"I know it's not the best time to say it, but Padmè, we have to go. We don't have much time!"

She took a step back, sniffling heavily, and nodded. "I know. It's just..."

I smiled, for the first time in months, wholeheartedly. "No need to tell. I know how you feel!"

She smiled back, finally raising her face and looking straight into my eyes. By the Force, she was even more beautiful than the last time I had seen her. I couldn't really believe my own eyes.

"I love you..." she whispered.

"I love you too Angel. You don't know how much I do." I replied, as I hugged her again for a short yet incredibly strong moment. "Now, we really need to go. First, I'll get you out of here then we'll talk, how about that?"

"Seems reasonable. Far too reasonable for you..." she smirked, a hint of irony in her voice.

"Hey, people do change you know!" I gently pushed her away from me so I could look at her. "Now, let's get out of this place. It won't be long before Imperials will notice you're all out and wandering in the base."

Implicitly, she agreed. I could guess she had enough of that cell, she had always been a free spirit, cramped spaces didn't fit her too much, at least for too long. We both stepped out her cell. The other Rebels were already harmed with the dead troopers' blasters and were trying to figure out where they were.

Pulling it using the Force, I grabbed one of the left blasters and checked it for a moment or too. It still had its power cell fully charged, that trooper didn't even had the time to shoot a single blast. "Here." I said as I handed it to Padmè. "Do you know how to use it?" I asked.

She looked up at me as if I had just inquired she was unable to do the simplest chore. "Of course I do. It's a blaster, nothing more."

"It's a last generation blaster, rather different from those you trained with!" that was my main worry. Hiding for so long might have cut her contacts with latest technology. I had to study that thing for a moment too when Dakk had taught me how to use it.

Shaking her head she took the blaster from my hand and released the safety button, loading the rifle with three hundred deadly shots. Then, never taking her stare off of me, pulled the lever for heavy fire mode. The gun made a low hiss, signaling it was ready to fire. She gave me one of those looks I hated, that look that means "who do you think are you dealing with" in such a sarcastic tone that it almost stung like a needle.

"Alright, you know how to use it." I sighed, totally defeated. "What about you?" I asked the others.

"We do Master Rosh." said one of them.

"Good. Now, listen here!" I said walking to the door and facing them. "I've set some traps on the way out of here. There are proximity mines, six of them, from the lift to the service door that connects this part of the base and the part that the Alliance managed to seize. I want all of you to be extra careful, we're likely to encounter a lot of troopers, since we are deep into the enemy's territory. I'm gonna lead the group and I'll try to defend you as best as I can. Deal?"

They nodded. "I'm closing the group." said one of them, a rather big, tough Mon Calamari man, Colonnel Ackbar was his name. "And check in case they come from behind."

"It's unlikely, considering the path I've set, but functional nonetheless. Are you ready?" I asked.

"Yes Master." they replied.

"Good. Let's go then, and may the Force be with us!" I said as I punched the button of the lift.

When the door opened, they stepped in and waited for me. I was about to do the same when I had an idea. When I was opening the doors I saw a weapon cabinet in the wall. Maybe if I staged an accident with the weapons inside there...

"Hold the lift, I have an idea." I ran towards the cabinet and opened it.

"What are you doing?" asked Padmè, a bit worried.

"A diversion. If I stage a malfunction of one of these weapons and create an explosion that's nasty enough, maybe we can sneak around unnoticed. I don't want to loose any of you!" I replied.

Inside that cabinet there was full of battery and power cells, but not explosives. Damn, I had to jam a couple of batteries to obtain the kind of explosion I wanted. And I had to do it quick. I took one of the batteries and opened it, revealing the printed circuit and a couple of wires. Well, at least the Imperial batteries were old-styled enough to have wires. I did the same with another one then I cut the four wires and linked the two batteries to close the circuit. Alright, power supply was done. Now I needed something to blow. And the power cell for the blasters would do pretty well.

"Master, you need to hurry!" called on of the Rebels in the lift. For a moment, I looked at them and I saw five worried faces and among them, I saw Padmè smiling brightly as I worked. She knew what I was doing.

"Hang on a second!" I replied while I striped the wires of the power cell and connected them, in a rather barbaric way, to the uncovered wires of the two batteries I had connected. Then I placed the rudimentary grenade near other power cells then took the safety cable away, so the two batteries started overloading the cell. After that, I ran as if I had the hells of the Sith right behind my ass. The small crowd in the elevator opened and left me room enough to stop before Padmè pushed the button and the door closed.

Soon after that, we heard a rather loud bang from the other side. It wasn't a heavy blast, but it was enough to be heard through the heavy durasteel door. Right after that, I inserted the key Piet "gave" me in its lodging and pushed the button of the desired floor.

"You alright?" asked Padmè as I took a deep breath.

I nodded. "Yes, yes I'm fine. I'm just not too into bombs and explosions, that's all." I replied as I took hold of the hilt of my saber and faced the door, just in case when it would open there was someone not particularly welcoming in our regards.

"I don't like explosions either..." whispered someone behind me.

"No one likes explosions, except bounty hunters and movie special effects specialists!" replied another unknown voice.

That short exchange made me think about how me, Darrick and Jax loved to place small traps here and there in the Padawan dorm rooms. Small bombs, nothing serious, but the reaction in other kids was always incredibly funny. Once we even manage to startle Master Windu. He had come to the dorm rooms to check on a wounded Padawan when he accidentally activated one of our small bomb and the small explosion (nothing more than a moderately noisy bang and some smoke, nothing dangerous at all, we were kids, not dumbasses) made him jump a bit and stop in his tracks. Too bad we were laughing so much we were soon discovered and punished. We had to clean the whole Temple ventilation system as a punishment. It took us six weeks to finish and you don't know what we found in there. There were small treasures in those shafts, it was incredible.

Anyway the lift stopped and the doors opened. I was expecting to find an empty corridor but no such luck. As I had managed to sneak in without making too much noise, getting out was totally another thing. Damn it, that corridor was full of troopers heading to the lift in order to access the cell block!

We were greeted by the barrels of six blasters and six correspondent troopers.

"You're under arrest!" shouted one of them.

I looked at them, my grip on the hilt of my saber tightened as I felt the fear of the men and woman behind me and those in front of me. It was like being crashed between two walls.

"Drop your weapons, now!" repeated the clone, probably the one in charge. "You're under arrest!"

"I don't think so!" I replied as I ignited my saber and cut the six barrels of their rifles, making them useless.

"Oh shit..." gasped one of them while those behind me started a shower of blasts, overtaking them in less then a blink.

As soon as they had fallen down on the floor, I stepped out of the lift and looked around. No clones in sight but I could hear, and feel, a frantic activity all around the base. It wouldn't have been long before we could encounter other troopers heading to the cell block. We had to hurry.

In fact, the next time I checked on my left, I saw another squad approaching.

"Shit they're coming!. Come on, get out of there. We have to move!" I said, gesturing them to come out. "This way!"

While I deflected the incoming blasters, they shot back at them, killing them almost instantly. As usual, Padmè was in first line, and I guess most of the shots that hit the target were hers. She had always been a damn good gunner, that's sure.

"Alright, let's get out of here now!" shouted Ackbar from behind.

I couldn't agree more. I walked ahead of the group and made my way on the path I had planned to safety. We had to be quick, now that they knew the prisoners had escaped and that there was a Jedi in the base.

As we ran towards that damn door, I contacted Ahsoka through the comlink.

"Ahsoka, do you copy?"

"Yes Master. Do you have them?"

"Yes I do. We're all here, call the others on the other side and tell them we're coming!" I shouted through the comlink as I deflected another shower of blasters. "Do it quickly Padawan! We're coming!"

I saw another squad of troops three or four yards from one of the proximity mines I had placed. Using the Force, I sent it flying among them and ignited it.

"Drop down!" I shouted moments before it exploded, killing the troops and stunning me. I wasn't fast enough to drop on the floor with the others and the blast wave hit me pretty bad. The flash blinded me for a moment and a shower of debris covered me. A sharp piece what looked like a part of the armor of a trooper flew like an arrow and stuck in my arm.

"Shit!" I cursed loudly.

"Master, are you alright?" asked Ahsoka.

I pulled the sliver out of my flesh. It wasn't stuck deep, but it hurt and bled like hell. That mission was getting worse and worse by the moment.

"Yes, I'm fine. We're getting closer, tell them to prepare!" then I closed the call.

"Anakin are you alright?" this time it was Padmè. She grabbed my arm and inspected the wound.

"Yes I'm fine. Why do you keep asking me that?" I moaned as she put a clean cloth on the cut.

"Because I'm you're wife and I'm worried!" she replied drily. "That's why I ask!"

I was about to reply when I heard footsteps approaching. "Watch out, troops incoming!" I shouted as I lit my blade.

Taking them by surprise we shot them down in no seconds. They didn't know we were harmed, at least that was a good thing. We could use the surprise factor.

"This is turning like the Battle of Theed!" she said leaning on the wall as I looked ahead of the corner we had to turn, just in case there was someone ready to shoot us.

"Really?" I asked as I gestured them it was safe to go. We were coming closer and closer to safety and I was looking forward to open that damn door.

"Yes. The only difference is that the hallways were huge and there were droids instead of clones." she replied. "Don't you remember?"

"Padmè, it was twenty one years ago, I was nine and I was in the cockpit of a starfighter I had never seen blowing up the droid control ship. No, really, I don't remember that part of the battle!" I laughed, teasing her.

She sighed for a moment. "Alright, I'm sorry, I forgot you were on the other side of the battle at the time!"

We turned another corner and finally we managed to get into that freaking storage room. "Here we are. Come on now, we must get out of here!"

I gathered everyone and we waited for the door to open. It took more than what I would have liked. I was getting frustrated. "Come on, open this freaking door!" I cursed loudly at some point, as I kept a close eye on the hallway just in case someone showed up.

"What are they waiting for?" asked Ackbar.

"Don't know. I called and told them to open up!" I replied drily. That delay wasn't a good sign. The more they waited, the less time we had to transfer everyone. The door was more like a service passage of some kind, it wasn't wide enough to be trespassed while standing, you had to crawl through and it took some time.

Damn it. It was really taking too long. I passed my light saber to my left hand and banged my durasteel fist on the metallic door as hard as I could. "Hey there, on the other side, what are you waiting for? A call from Master Yoda?" I shouted rather angrily.

"Anyway is he still alive?" I asked Padmè.

She nodded. "Yes. He's on Dagobah. He keeps a close eye on the Emperor from there."

"Good. Now I wish I could open this damn door now!"

Ask and you will be heard. Well, not always, but this time, it worked rather well. The dark metallic door opened and a sweaty, greasy face peeked through the threshold. "Hey there, how ya doing?" he asked.

"I would be better if I were on the other side with the others but, right now, we're ok. Can we start the transfer now?" I asked.

"Sure. The conduct is about forty yards long, there's now space for more than a man to go through, so, it's gonna take a while. Can you handle it?"

"We can. Come on, let's get these people to safety!"

Incredibly slowly, they started to crawl out of that place. Those who remained guarded the entrance in case someone arrived.

I was checking the corridor when someone touched my shoulders. It was Padmè, smiling widely as she waited her turn to get to safety. As usual, she had chosen to let the others go before her, so altruistic she was, it was a predictable after all.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

I nodded. "Yes. My arm stings a little but it's bearable. I just want all of you to be safe that's all."

She smiled again. It warmed my heart seeing her safe and sound. Well, almost. "Anyway, why are you drenched and covered with mud?"

I chuckled for a moment. "I had to crawl through a service canal. It was a bit moldy and wet." I replied quietly. "That's why I didn't kiss you earlier, because I'm not in condition to do it!"

"Oh come on who cares of a little mud!" she said, grabbing the hem of my tunic and dragging me down to kiss her.

I had to find support on the wall in order to stand up and not fall on the floor. It was just...perfect! I mean, after eight years I was kissing my wife again. It felt like a dream. A fantastic dream, one of those dreams you don't want to wake up from. With everything that was going on around us, that was a moment of perfect bliss. Too bad it ended.

When she took a step back and broke the kiss, I was probably wearing the most stupid expression because she suddenly burst in laughs. "Come on now, close your mouth. You look like a fish."

I did as ordered. "Sorry. It's just that after so much time, it feels like a dream!"

"I know. We'll talk about this later, now we have to go!"

"Ehm, I had other plans for later, you know what I mean..." I teased her again.

She sighed. "Yes, I know very well what you mean, but right now, we need to get out of here!"

The last of the Rebels had gone through the service tunnel, so we knelt beside the entrance and asked if it was clear. After we received a positive answer, I helped Padmè getting inside the tunnel.

She was probably three feet away from the threshold when we heard a loud hiss and the sound of an explosion from above us. Something was wrong. Something was very very wrong.

Acting on instinct I grabbed her ankle and dragged her out of that tunnel, a moment before a carefully placed charge exploded, sending a wave of fire at the ends of the tunnels. I had barely the time to drag her out of the line of fire when the charge blew away the tunnel and the fire almost burnt the both of us there. In order to protect her, I rolled on my side, covering her body with mine as much as I could. I could feel the scorching heat for a second or two before the fire retired once it finished the propeller.

Before I let go of her, I waited until I couldn't hear the ceiling of the tunnel crumbling on itself anymore, then I released her enough to look at her.

We exchanged a panicked look, our faces mirroring the emotions of the other.

"I have a bad feeling about this!"


	32. You Haven't Made Your Peace

**Chapter 32 – You Haven't Made Your Peace**

"I have a bad feeling about this..."

That's what we both mumbled altogether as the rumble from the explosion died down. Debris were still flying all around us, and dust clouded the air around us but it was clear that someone had prepared a trap or something. And we were sealed on the wrong side of the base. Damn it. Alone I could have sneaked out rather easily, using the same way I used to get in but with her? No, it was too dangerous. Getting down there again...

"This is not going as I planned..." I grunted as I stood up, shaking the dust off of me.

"Nothing ever goes as planned Anakin..." she replied raising her blaster.

"I know. And I hate it!" I grabbed my comlink and called Ahsoka, hoping communications weren't jammed. "Ahsoka, do you hear me?"

"Yes Master. There was an explosion are you alright?"

 _Why do everyone keep asking me if we're alright? Of course we aren't!_  I thought. "Yes we are. But Padmè and I are still stuck on the wrong side of the tunnel. We need to get out of here!"

Padmè was checking for anyone incoming as I spoke.

"You're on the third underground level aren't you?" she asked. I confirmed. "Alright, get the first lift you find and go to sixth floor above ground. There's a catwalk that leads to the external wall. Head east and there should be a hidden ladder that leads straight to the forest. That's the safest and fastest way out."

"Estimated time to get out?" I asked, gesturing Padmè to start walking towards the lift.

"Ten minutes, maybe less." she replied.

"Alright, get ready for the bombing, we're coming out!" I closed the call and pushed the button of the closest lift we found. It wasn't that far from the one we used to get to that level and it didn't require any key to be used.

"You're gonna bomb the base?" she asked as we waited.

I nodded. "Yeah, it's the only way to end it here. We don't want this to become a siege!"

"You're right, but what about the part of the base we control?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Ahsoka should have had it evacuated by know. Consider that from the moment I was recalled from the airfield it took me more than an hour to open that cell door!"

The sliding door of the elevator opened, revealing it was already occupied by a couple of officers who Padmè quickly gunned down. As I dragged the two dead bodies out of the lift, I heard her sigh. "I hate guns!"

"But you use a blaster better than them. That's strange."

We stepped in and pushed the required button. "I had to learn how to use them. It was a matter of survival." she replied.

"I remember all too well. And to be honest, I hoped your past experience had taught you to stay out of trouble!"

She chuckled, smiling for a while. "Then I wouldn't have my own personal Jedi Knight to come and save me! You're every little girl's dream you know?"

It was my turn to smile. Every little girl's dream. Yeah, like every little girl dreams of a Jedi who's continuously walking on the razor's edge. Sometimes I really wondered how I managed to make her fall in love with me. "Me? Every little girl's dream? Oh come on! You picked the wrong guy!"

"No I didn't, I've known you for twenty years and you never failed me. Never!"

"It's twenty one and hey, I practically abandoned you! I thought you would have killed me the moment you saw me!"

It wasn't true, I knew she didn't think that I abandoned her and the twins. She was far too smart to think something like that, but teasing each other was the only way we could survive through that situation. I was a step away from freaking out and she, well, on the surface, she looked calm as an ice block on the surface but underneath, I knew she was in turmoil. I could feel it and her expression, even though she tried to hide it behind a stoic smile, showed signs of frustration and most of all, fear.

We were both scared to death. No need to deny it, we were scared to death. Both of us had imagined a totally different outcome, everything was just going fine then there was that explosion. We still don't know if it was an accident or the charge blew because it was planned to do so but that really crippled my plan. And our chances to survive were slightly decreased.

"How are the kids?" I asked a moment before the elevator stopped and the doors opened.

"Fine I guess. When we brought them on Naboo though they became a bit clingy, they didn't want to let me go. They said they felt something would go wrong! That they had a bad feeling." she replied.

Carefully we exited and looked around. That level seemed less crowded than the one we had just left. Nevertheless, I held my lightsaber high and ignited, just in case. Some missions taught me not to underestimate silence and absence of troops and soldiers. Any distraction could turn into a nasty situation.

"You should have listened. By now you should know that the Skywalkers are rather precise when they talk about bad feelings."

"I know. But, Anakin...I had to. I was one of those who formed the Rebellion, I just couldn't sit around and watch them as they died for something I had created!" she said raising the blaster rifle in front of her as we turned a corner. She was moving like a solder, it was incredible. "At least I had to be present!"

I sighed. She was right. She had to be there. Just as much as me. We both had to be there. It was like a moral duty.

"Alright, I'm sorry. I understand your feelings. I just wanted you to be safe. That's all." I walked a step forward her and checked into a nearby room. We were still far from the door that lead out on the external walls and I wanted to protect her as best as I could. A trooper jumping out of a room because I hadn't checked was out of question. I wanted to be overzealous if I had to.

"When did you learn to be so reasonable?" she asked, slightly amused.

"Well, you know, seven years in prison tend to chance people. I had to adapt if I wanted to survive."

She stopped in her tracks and lowered her gun. "What happened?"

I took a deep breath, as my mind drifted back to those terrible years. To a particular day actually. I had been there for four years then and I was already used to the routine, and I got pretty good at manipulating the Force in order to heal faster but that day, well, it was very very hard. By Vader's order, they doubled the efforts to break every bone in my skeleton. Blow after blow, I felt probably all my ribs break under the barrage of hits coming from nowhere. I couldn't see actually, because both my eyes were swollen and bruised. I was lucky they never hit too strongly my jaw, I never lost a tooth. Anyway, I had to stand there, chained to the roof so I could only stand on my knees, barely able to hang on, my wrists incredibly sore for all the time they had to support all my weight, and they kept hitting me like I was a punching bag in their training quarters. They were instructed to inflict as much pain as they could and stop only when I would have lost consciousness. In the end of the session I was a heap of bleeding flesh and broken bones. Probably Sidious had grown impatient and wanted to force me to his side.

What prevented me to give up? I don't know. I had learned how to withdraw from what was going on around me and to me, but that day it was impossible. I remember that I kept thinking that I had to hold on so one day I would have seen the light of the sun again, that if I gave up I would have never seen my wife and child (I still thought it was only one child at the time), that Sidious would have ruined my life, that I would have disappoint too many people I cared and stuff like that. Not a coherent, single thought but a sort of collection of flashes that kept changing. That made me realize how much I would have lost in case I would have let Sidious win, not only I would have lost my family, but my dignity as well.

What I was forced to stand was abominable and something I didn't really want to share with her. Pain and anguish had stained our love for too long, I didn't want her to know what really happened to me. It would have been too painful, I couldn't allow her to suffer for something that happened to me and now was part of my past, not hers.

"Nothing. It's just that...well, growing old is getting old." I replied, a brief smile appeared on my face but the memory quickly killed it.

"Anakin, please, don't lie to me. We all know what happened. Obi-Wan could feel it from the other side of the Galaxy. Luke and Leia too, they had nightmares about it. I want to know what happened to my husband, and I mean it!"

Again, she was right. I had to tell her, sooner or later. But that wasn't just the right occasion. Even if I didn't want to put more weight on her shoulders, I knew she had to know. During those years, I had changed and she needed to know why I wasn't the man she used to know.

"Listen, Padmè, it's a long story. Long and believe me, gruesome. I've gone through terrible things and I admit it, I changed a lot. I might not be the man you fell in love with anymore, but I want you know that my feelings haven't changed. And I assure you that once we're out of this base and heading to Naboo I'm going to tell you everything." I said softly, as if I feared someone could hear us. "Just not now. Can you wait an hour or so?"

She nodded. "Yes. I waited eight years, I can wait some more time. Now, let's get out of here."

We resumed our escape and carefully walked down the hallway as silently as we could, in order to hear any approaching person. I was trying to concentrate and perceive any life form around us through the Force but it was hard to concentrate in that particular situation. Vader's presence was twisting everything around me and I couldn't really feel anything farther than a few yards. It was frustrating to say the least.

And probably it was because of that twisting undertow that I couldn't hear the squad approaching from behind before it was too late and they started firing on us.

"Damn it!" I shouted spinning on my heels and deflecting the blasts while Padmè shoot the clones down.

"You're ability are a bit rusty Anakin..." she yelled above the noise. "Ten years ago you would have spotted them a hundred yards away."

"Thanks for the support Padmè!" I replied as sarcastic as I could be. "There's something...the Force is unclear. I can't concentrate enough!"

The last trooper was down and this time we both could hear footsteps coming from the direction we were heading. We turned around and prepared to fight again. Six troopers stopped just after a corner and fired upon us and we replied as best as we could. My perceptions might have been rusty, but I was still the best with the lightsaber. And Padmè never missed a hit. Our skills combined were deadly.

We started moving. We had barely fifteen minutes left before Ahsoka and her bombers arrived, we couldn't just stand there and wait.

"You know, I have a strange sense of deja vù." I groaned as I cut in half the last of the troopers ahead of us.

"Geonosis?" she asked, picking up a spare power cell from one of the fallen clones.

She could still read my mind like an open book. She is the most amazing woman in the galaxy, no doubt. "Exactly. We did quite good down there!"

"Well, except your arm, three scars on my back and the beginning of the war, yes, we did great!" she smiled, raising her gun again.

"We're good on the battlefield." I replied.

"We're even better at something else." she teased me, a wicked grin on her face.

If it had been another, completely different situation, I would have burst into laughs so hard I would probably be rolling on the floor, but there and then, all things considered, I settled with a loud chuckle. "Oh yes, we're definitely better at that, you're absolutely right!"

We stopped for a moment and laughed both. It just seemed so weird talking about our sex life like that, in an Imperial base while being chased. Still laughing, I looked down at her and as always I wondered where would I had been now if I hadn't met her. Even now, after being taken prisoner, after being in I don't remember how many gunfights she was just gorgeous. Eight years apart, and she hadn't changed a bit. Well, she had changed. She was a bit...rounder than what I remembered, but most women do change a bit after a pregnancy, that was to be expected, and just below her ear I could clearly see a lock that stood out a bit paler than her usual dark brown hair color. Anyway, she was even more beautiful than the last time I had seen her.

"I love you Padmè..." I whispered then.

"I love you too Anakin. I still can't believe you're actually here!"

I took a step forward and closed the distance between us, hugging her tightly. "I'm here, I'm real and I swear I'm never going away. I fought too hard to find you and now that I'm here, come hell or high waters, I'm sticking at your side."

I could feel her shaking as she embraced me back, her cheek resting on my wet tunic. She took a deep breath and sighed contently. "Finally..." she simply said, before she took a step back and kissed me briefly. A quick shiver went down my spine as our lips touched. "We've got to get out though, before we can say it's over!"

I nodded and silently we went back to our escape.

Even after that short, hilarious moment that calmed me down a bit, I still couldn't concentrate on the Force. There was something, or someone, blocking me, and it wasn't something I liked. My mind was somehow numb, I couldn't think about anything else than what I had in front of me.

Frustrated and overly worried with Padmè's safety, I changed tactic. Instead of trying to sense what was going on far from us, I concentrated on what was close. That way, I could at least get a rather precise sketch of the area around us. It wasn't much, but at least those who moved in that area would be detected.

The change of attitude brought the desired effects. Less than a minute later, I was able to sense someone not too far from us, just around the corner actually. I firmly pushed her against the wall and gestured her to remain silent. Carefully, I peeked around the corner and counted only one officer that was working on a computer.

I leaned closer to her. "There's an officer working with a computer. I think he's calling some backup. I don't want to leave to jump and kill him just like that, if there's someone on the other side of the comlink they're gonna suspect something and send here all the troops they have."

"What do you want to do?"

"You stay here, I'll pretend to surrender and I'm going to try the mind trick. If it doesn't work well, I'll try to scare him enough then I'll order him to recall the back up, in case he already asked for it. Do you think it will work?" I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. Well, trying won't hurt. In case it won't work?"

"Then I'm going to drop to the floor and you'll shoot him down. What do you think?"

She sighed. "I don't like killing people, but I guess I have to."

"It's time to fight Padmè, I'm sorry." I took a deep breath then looked back at the officer. He looked rather desperate in front of that computer screen. "Alright, let's see how it goes."

She sneaked a hand behind my neck and pulled me down for a kiss. "Good luck Anakin."

Taking a deep, steadying breath, I walked around the corner. As soon as I was visible, his hand went to the gun hostler at his hip and retrieved the gun. "Stop there where you are."

I remained there as ordered. "Hands up." again I obeyed. "Who are you?"

"Jedi Knight Atton Rosh." I said, coldly.

"You're the responsible for all this mess?" he asked. He was scared to death. I could feel it.

"Yes."

"Where are the prisoners you let escape?"

"Dead. There was an explosion and they died under the wreckage." I took a slow step towards him. "And now you'll tell your colleagues that the emergency is over and that all the intruders are dead."

He looked disoriented for a moment or two, then his expression went back to the mix of fear and determination that I saw earlier. "What are you talking about?"

"You will call them and call the emergency off. Now." I repeated. This one wasn't like lieutenant Piet, this one was a tough mind to meddle with.

No, it didn't work at all. "Alright, let's make it quick." Using the Force, I lifted him from the floor and threw his blaster gun away. "Since the Force doesn't work on you...now you call them and stop the back ups. Now!"

He was scared, I knew it, but he was too determined. He was a fervent follower of the Emperor, one of those who enrolled in the Army because they actually believed what the government said about protecting the Galaxy. He wouldn't do it, unless he'd been dead.

"No, I won't do it, Jedi." he said, scornfully.

"Really? Do you really want to die like this?" I tried to coax him to cooperate, one way or another. "Come on, help me and you'll live."

"I will never help one of you, Jedi scum!" he spit out. I could feel the hatred seething his words.

"Well, if that's the case!" I released the hold that lifted him from the ground and knelt down so Padmè had free space to shoot.

A quick and incredibly effective second to aim and a single blast hit him between his eyes, killing him instantly. He crumbled on the floor like an empty sack.

It was incredible. The E-11 was a rather imprecise weapon and she managed to place the perfect shot. Standing up, I turned towards her and smiled. "That was an amazing shot!"

She blew a rebellious lock out of her face. "Just luck. This thing is incredibly inaccurate!"

"The problems of low cost designs. Come on, let's get out."

But when I thought we were almost free, the gigantic, dark figure of Darth Vader appeared in front of us.

He was close then. Obi-Wan tried to reassure me about that bad feeling, telling me it was only my mind making up things but now, well, I had the un-living proof he was wrong. Vader was there, and it was his presence that twisted the Force that way. I felt the anger rising in me but managed to control myself.

Instinctively I ignited my lightsaber and pushed Padmè behind me in the desperate tentative to protect her.

"Vader..." I groaned.

"Well well well. Finally we meet again, Skywalker." his electronic voice still gave me the creeps, not to mention his mask and suit. Damn, I'm a tall guy, but he was really a giant. "And the famous Senator Amidala nonetheless! I'm flattered!"

"What do you want?" I asked, my blade high between us, defensively.

"The right question is who do I want, Skywalker. And the answer is you Skywalker. I want you, and I want you dead."

"You should have killed me when you had the chance Vader." I replied. "Last time we met was the perfect chance."

"That wouldn't have been fair, and fun. Now I really want to see why my Master wants you so bad." he croaked.

"Really?" I asked rhetorically. "Then attack. I'm here!"

"I want a fair fight though. Your wife must stand aside."

I quickly glanced back at her, then at him again. He was right. It was a matter between us. She had to stay back, for her safety too.

"That won't be a problem. Padmè..." I called her, never leaving his masked face. "Stand back and don't try to do anything. I'll deal with him myself."

"Yes, Anakin.." her voice faltered, but I heard her as she disengaged her blaster and lowered it, aiming the barrel to the floor.

"Now, Skywalker, I think we can begin!"

"Let's make it quick, we have a transport to take."

"If you insist..."

He turned his red blade on and leaped towards me. He was quicker than what I had thought, considering his armor. His swings and hacks were precise and well calibrated, and he put a lot of strength in each one. I parried and deflected each one, but in the cramped hallway I found it rather hard to move as I wished. I was used to make wide movements, and I felt awkward in there. I had to do something.

As I remained in a defensive stance, I tried to figure out what to do. I needed more space, so I could fight my way, but I couldn't see a room or anything opening in that hallway. It wasn't getting any better when I pushed him backwards and made him turn around another corner. That base was a labyrinth, I was loosing orientation in there.

But all that thinking distracted me and he managed to catch me off guard. He pushed me against the wall, hard. I hit the wall hard, my vision clouded for a second and I felt something warm and sticky sliding down my temple and face. Blood.

I swear on the Force I know he was smiling, pleased of the damage he had inflicted me. Grunting, I blocked another swing from him and lunged at him, trying to counterattack as fast as I could. I wasn't fast enough. He deflected my blow and hit back.

We turned another time. Behind him there was a door. Probably, the same door we were looking for. Dodging his last lunge, I pushed him hard through the Force against the wall and managed to stride behind him and switch position.

With that change I could lead the fight where I wanted. Walking backwards, I kept parrying and hitting back. He was damn good. I had sparred with him years before but his style had changed because of his injuries. He was quick that was sure, but he had a weak spot. He couldn't move as wide as I did. His movements were constricted and through the Force I could feel the pain he was suffering. His mechanic limbs were not designed to be as normal ones, just like mine that never gave me a problem, they seemed to be designed more to be cumbersome and terribly painful. He wanted to end the fight as quick as he could, and I could understand him very well.

During a brief pause in the fight, I punched the control panel beside me and opened the door behind me. It was indeed the one we've been looking for. I jumped back and I was on the external wall, a step away from freedom and safety. And I knew Ahsoka wasn't far away, she was coming with her bombers, I could feel it.

"What's going on Skywalker?" he asked, mocking me. "I heard you were second only to Master Yoda in sword fighting!"

I chuckled, barely affected by his teasing. "Let's see how I fight out here!" then I leaped towards him and swung my blade towards him, left to right, often changing pattern, style and strength. The sudden change of aggressiveness caught him off guard and he faltered backwards. I took advantage of his faltering and pushed again him back. I hoped it was hard enough to make him fall but he managed to remain to his feet and pushed back. He sent me flying backwards but I landed on my feet. At least that.

"Finally a good challenge. You know, it's been years since I had a real opponent rather than a scared Jedi I had hunted down like a bird of prey!"

Two TIE Fighters flew above us.

"Since Mustafar I guess!" I shouted above the noise.

That made him angry. I felt it, like a wave through the Force. As a result, he stomped towards me, his blade hacked from left to right in a disorganized flurry, as I parried his blows one after the other. I was waiting for that right chance to hit him, but his attack was relentless, I couldn't find a breach in his defense.

Until he took a wrong step. He was becoming predictable and tired. And I could take advantage of it. I slashed three times on the left then changed stance and hit twice on my right side. When he changed stance in order to parry my attacks he opened his arms wide enough so that I could turn around and hit his chest plate with my elbow. The plastic and the electronic components that allowed him to breath and controlled his vital functions cracked and broke and he dropped his lightsaber almost instantly. He stumbled backwards, holding his chest with his gloved hands.

His hissing breath changed pattern and became halting and shallow. He tried to breathe regularly on his own but failed miserably. After eight years in that suit, he probably didn't even know how to do it. There was no way he could breath again, considering the kind of damage I had managed to cause to his life sustaining system.

I felt his burning eyes on me, through his black lenses, as he stared at me for a long moment.

For an endless instant, we stared at each other, both panting heavily. I could feel the Force whirlwind around us as far away we could hear the incoming fighters. It seemed like that moment lasted forever, and it was almost painful to stand his masked gaze. He was panting hard, his breath came in shallow pants, and it sounded like there was water in his burned lungs. He didn't say anything. He just stared at me. I could feel his hatred. A Jedi defeated him for the second time. That was the most cruel punishment to him. The shame. As Obi-Wan eight years earlier, I had defeated him, and I did it with a trick. If he hated me then, after that encounter, and for sixteen years it would have been our last meeting, well, he loathed me.

Then I heard a blaster shooting. Then Vader fell on his knees, then on his side, not a sound escaped him.

Padmè stood there, behind me, her rifle raised and an incredibly intense stare in her eyes. She lowered her weapon and stared at him, apparently calm, but I knew that deep down she wanted to kill him as much as I did.

We watched as Vader crawled to the railing of the wall and pulled himself up to his knees. He was clinging to life again, I felt a dark flow all around him as he gripped the durasteel bar as hard as he could. He turned around looked at me again. One last time. He breathed hard before he spoke.

"We'll meet again Skywalker. And we'll finish this, for good."

Then he let himself fall down the wall. It was a huge leap, and in his conditions, both me and Padmè doubted he could survive, considering the shot and the damaged chest plate.

Aster had always been a proud man and that exist was his only escape to get out of there with a bit of honor left. It was strange though, watching someone you know, fleeing like that.

Anyway, after a moment of confusion, I turned my ligthtsaber off and hanged it at my belt, then rushed to Padmè. "Come on, we've got to go. Ahsoka is coming."

"Is he dead?" she asked, her eyes never leaving the spot were Vader stood a moment before.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. I could still feel him. He was weak, barely awake, but he was alive.

"No, he's alive. But the bombing will surely kill him. And it will kill us both too if we stay here. We have to get out of here!"

She suddenly jumped as I touched her shoulder. She was shocked, that was undeniable. "Yes. We have to go." she looked up at me, I could see tears in her eyes, but there was no time to waste. I grabbed her arm and started to run towards the emergency retractable ladder.

I pulled the lever using the Force and practically pushed her down the slippery steps. "Quick Padmè, I can hear them."

She moved as fast as she could and I soon followed. When we touched the grassy ground, I looked around for a moment, trying to find a reference point and orientate. It took me couple of seconds to realize that we were a mile away from the ship.

The rumble of the bombers was becoming deafening as they flew closer and closer. We had to move.

"How long?" she asked, looking up at the still clean sky.

"Thirty seconds, maybe less. Run now!"

And we ran, as fast as we could. We managed to reach the forest edge a split second before the first bomb was dropped.

The explosion was deafening. We kept running but the blast wave hit us. Well, it hit me. I felt it coming and managed to push Padmè behind a tree so it wouldn't have crushed her.

But it hit me like the strongest Force push I had ever went through. It sent me flying up in the air and before I could gain some control on myself and land safely, I hit a large tree and crumbled on the bushy ground.

I don't even remember the pain. I remember Padmè screaming my name though, even over the thundering explosions around us. My vision was hazed and I felt numb for a second or two. I couldn't hear clearly, the bang to my head deafened me. It was only when I saw Padmè kneeling beside me, her worried face hovering inches above mine, that I realized I couldn't breathe.

I tried to speak but the only sound that escaped me was a gurgling noise, along with the taste of blood. And the crushing pain at my chest. I felt like all my ribs had crumbled over themselves and blocked my lungs. I just couldn't breath.

"Anakin...Anakin please, breathe! Anakin please!"

I tried to breath in, and it seemed to work, but apparently my lungs didn't want to cooperate. Pulmonary shock. That was it. It was a rather common condition for those who suffered a chest trauma, like me. The breathing pace fucked up and the brain couldn't control the muscles properly.

But I knew the trick.

"Anakin, please.. Don't you die on me!" she cried as I grabbed her hand and placed it on my chest, just over my diaphragm.

"Breathe for me." I whispered with the scarce air I could muster, and I pushed her hand on my chest then released it, mimicking a normal breathing pace.

She caught the hint and soon I was breathing almost normally. We never stopped looking at each other, and even with the hell unleashing probably not a hundred yards away from us, we found a moment of peace as she indeed breathed for me.

A minute, maybe two later, I was able to inhale and exhale normally. I took a deep, painful lungful of air and closed my eyes for a moment. We were out, we just needed to find Artoo and...

I tried to sit up and my chest protested heavily. I coughed hard a couple of times, spitting blood all over my tunic. "Damn..."

"Anakin, are you..."

"No, I'm not fine. But I have to hold on." I whispered. I could breath almost normally but I couldn't speak. "We have to find my ship."

"Can you walk?" she asked inspecting my legs.

My left leg was broken, but the tight boot held it together. It hurt like hell, but I could stand it.

"Yes. Barely but I can. Help me please."

She helped me to my feet and limping heavily and leaning on her, we walked towards my ship.

"Are you hurt?" I asked after a couple of minutes.

She shook her head. "No, I'm fine. Thanks to you."

I sighed. "Good. At least I'm still a nice bodyguard!" I groaned.

Ten minutes later we found a clearing. I couldn't walk anymore though, my leg and chest hurt too much.

"Padmè, I can't walk..." I sagged on a tree. I rummaged in my pocket and gave her a comlink. "Here, call Artoo, tell him to bring the ship here."

She took the comlink from my hand and called our little droid as I fell on the ground. I moaned as my broken ribs ground into each other. I spit some more blood and cleaned my mouth with my sleeve. I didn't want her to worry about me.

Once she finished the call, she turned to me and made a quick examination. She wasn't a doctor but there was no need for knowing that if I didn't receive proper medical treatment I would have died down there.

"You don't look too good." she said.

"You're gorgeous." I replied, smiling weakly.

She smiled in return, briefly. "I've been better. You need help, you know that?"

I nodded. "Yes. This time it's bad."

A moment later, Artoo arrived with my X-Wing. He parked it ten yards away from us and flew out of his place. From a compartment of the ship, he retrieved the small first aid kid and threw it to Padmè.

She grabbed it and opened it. A syringe and a small bottle appeared in her hands.

"I hate needles."

"I know. But this time, you need it." she stick it into my left bicep and pushed. "It will make you feel better."

After that, she applied a sterile cloth on my head. "I'm sorry." I whispered.

"For what?"

"For abandoning you, eight years ago."

She shook her head. "You never abandoned me. Never. Remember that."

Suddenly a loud rumble echoed above us. It was an engine. An engine of a big ship. It was a transport cargo and as it landed near us, we could see Darrick and Obi-Wan from the opened lateral door. And behind them, a well known face, a face that saved my life already, about a year before. Janu, the Rebel medic that treated me when I was hurt on Naboo. They stepped down the transport with a stretcher, followed by two unknown Rebels and Aleha. She ran to Padmè and dragged her away from me, leaving Janu enough room to check on me.

"I told you this behavior would kill you one day." started Janu as he checked my ribs.

"I know. But I found them."

Yes, finally I could say that. I had found them. Eight years, but finally, I had found them.

As they loaded me on the stretcher for transportation I screamed as hard as I could. It was impossible for one in my condition to scream but I swear I screamed, and hard.

"I found you!" I yelled looking at Padmè. She was smiling brightly as Aleha checked on her. "I found you! I found you!"

"Anakin, lay down please. You're in no condition to yell like that!" said Obi-Wan, his hand on my shoulder as they loaded me on the ship.

I sniffled and felt the tears stinging behind my eyelids. It was over. It was really over. Finally.

I reached out with my hand and searched for Padmè's. I found her right beside me.

"I'm here Anakin, I'm not going anywhere!" she said, tears streaming down from her eyes. Happy tears.

Janu placed an oxygen mask on my mouth and nose and I felt another needle sticking in my arm. "Come on kid, sleep now. We have to cure you."

I turned my head towards him. "No please don't make me sleep! Not now!" I cried.

They couldn't. Not now at least. I had just found my wife and they wanted me to sleep?

"Anakin, you're hurt, badly. You're suffering from a pulmonary contusion, six broken ribs and a concussion. Not to mention your leg. You're gonna need surgery and a long bacta bath. Sleep now is what you need." the old medic explained. "It's the adrenaline that keeps you going, nothing else. You're a wreck, and if you go on like this, you will die!"

"No please...please don't put me to sleep..."

Then I felt her hand on my face. She made me turn and took my face in her hands. She rested her forehead on mine and kissed my cheek. "Anakin, let them treat you. We have time. Relax and sleep, I'm going to pick the kids up and when you'll wake up, they'll be right next to you, to meet their dad. Ok?"

Her voice was enough to make me relax. I sniffled again. "I love you Padmè..."

The last thing I saw was her teary, but smiling, face. After that, I blacked out.


	33. A Picture Worth A Thousand Lies

******Chapter 33 – A Picture Worth A Thousand Lies**

I have vague recollection of the following hours. The drug they first gave me wasn't that powerful. I remember flashes of what happened around me. Everything was numb and dulled, as if I was underwater. I could hear some sounds but they were unclear and muffled. I don't remember much of the procedures I went through though. I remember part of the transport, some flashes of the roof of the surgery room right before they started operating on me and then was when they gave me the anesthetic that knocked me out for hours. I remember faces and different voices, and I definitely remember the bacta bath.

I hated bacta baths though I had taken quite a few of them during my life. I woke up for a minute or two while submerged. I hardly managed to tear my eyes open and take a look around. Though hazed and definitely impaired by the thick blueish liquid, I saw Obi-Wan waiting for me, sitting on a chair and reading something on a datapad. I remember I took a deep breath and though it was still hurting, my ribs were mended and in their places. I even managed to look down and I saw an orthopedic splint holding my broken leg, blocking it in healing position.

Trying to move it is the last thing I remember. Probably the computer detected that I was awake and injected more anesthetic in my system, putting me back to dreamland for more time.

Next time I regained consciousness I felt incredibly tired, as if I had a huge weight pinning me down to the hospital bed. My head pounded like a war drum, and the strong lights above me blinded me when I managed to open my eyes. I felt slightly nauseated, but that was a side effect of the concussion, not to mention the huge dose of painkillers I had been given.

"Ugh..." was everything I could muster as I looked around.

"Hi there! Welcome back to the world of the living!" I heard Obi-Wan say, not too far from my bed.

"Thanks..." I groaned. My neck was as stiff as stone, I could barely move it. "How long did I sleep?"

"Sixteen hours. Well, actually fifteen hours and twenty five minutes. You were barely awake, and slightly delirious, for some minutes before the bath."

I was too tired to reply, I just groaned and sagged back on the pillow. "I don't remember that..."

"Oh, you didn't ruined your reputation. Well, at least those who were in the room appreciated your sense of humor..." he smiled jokingly. I tried to focus on his face but my sight was still blurred. Actually, everything was fuzzed and misty. I took a tentative look around and realized I was in an hospital room, probably on one of the main freights. It was a small room with a window opening on the hallway outside. My bed was connected to a computer that recorded my vital signs. I had and IV stuck in my left arm. My bare chest was tightly bandaged, holding the broken ribs in place.

"What did I say?" I asked, my words slurred and impaired. I must have been hurt really bad because even after the implant surgery on my arm I felt lightheaded yes, but not like that. It was like being drunk without having touched alcohol.

"Well, nothing remarkable. But at least you warned me so tonight I'm going to find a room far enough from yours!" he laughed.

"Oh damn!" I mumbled. "I'm sorry Master I..." I tried to apologize, but he stopped me with a gesture of his hand.

"Don't worry Anakin. You have all the rights. She's your wife after all." he smiled again. "But tell me, how do you feel?"

"As if I had been hit by Sebulba on his pod."

He chucked. "At least it wasn't an Imperial transport. That would hurt much more."

"I guess so. Where's Padmè?"

"On her way back from Naboo. It took her a bit longer to set off because Janu wanted to check on her before letting her go. She should be almost here, if there were no problems along the way."

"You let her go alone?"

He shook his head. "No, Aleha went with her. And Hilean too. She's in good hands, I swear."

I took a deep breath and sighed. "Thank the Force. Was she hurt?"

"A couple of bruises and a small cut on the back of her hand. She didn't really need to be checked on, but you know, you're never too sure about someone's safety." he said pulling his chair closer to my bed. "You were a wreck though. What the heck happened? She didn't say much about it."

"Vader was down there. I don't know how, but he knew I was going to be there. After I rescued the prisoners we managed to make five of them sneak out through the service tunnel but before Padmè went through, something exploded and the tunnel crumbled. We were trying to reach one of the emergency service ladders on the external walls when Vader confronted us. We fought and..."

His face was now dark and gloomy. Vader's name haunted every Jedi after all. "And?"

"And I managed to overcome him. With some help though. He fell from the wall moments before the bombing. I don't know if he's alive or not, but considering the damaged breather, the fall and the bombing, I doubt he survived."

He closed his eyes for a moment, then put his hand on my shoulder and shook it. "You did great Anakin."

"Thank you. Damn, I feel like an abused punching sack."

He chuckled again. "Well, it's normal. After all, you had six broken ribs and other three cracked. Add a pulmonary contusion, your spleen was bleeding as well. Not to mention the head trauma, the concussion and the broken leg. I've never seen you hurt that bad!"

I roughly rubbed my face and tried to wake up a bit more. I was expecting the cold durasteel of my prosthesis on my skin, instead I felt only warm skin. Jolting up on the bed, I looked at my arm in wonder. It was...human! "What the..."

"Finally you saw it! On the hospital ship there was a very skilled orthopedic surgeon. She developed a new technique to adapt synthetic flesh and skin to the structure of prosthesis like yours. She was working on your leg and came up with the idea, You were already prepared for surgery, I thought you would have appreciated it!"

I couldn't believe it. I didn't really know they knew how to make that...well, miracle. It was a miracle, at least to me. It felt like the left hand, as if I had my arm back, the same arm Dooku cut ten years before. "I...I don't really know what to say. It's...a miracle!"

"No, it's just science. After everything you went through, I felt compelled to do something for you. They asked me of they could proceed and I said yes. I hope you're not angry now."

"Angry?" I asked, still moving my new arm around, as much as I could even if I was still stunned by the drugs. "How could I be angry? This is...you allowed me to meet my kids as a human being. That hand was scary...now I'm...I'm human."

"You've always been human. This is just the finishing touch. And by the way, your children know about your arm. It wouldn't have scared them."

I took a deep breath and sighed. "If only I could go back...I missed so much."

"Don't worry, they'll fill you in. They love talking, most of all Leia. She's like Padmè, she doesn't like violence much, she prefers to talk about problems instead of using her lightsaber."

"Yeah, very much like Padmè. Luke?" I was beginning to feel a little better. Nausea was gone and the throbbing in my head had subsided, it was now bearable. My chest still hurt a bit but it wasn't too much. My leg was giving me more troubles, but it wasn't too bad. I could deal with it later.

"Well, Luke is very much like you when you were younger but he's a bit more submissive. He actually obeys me and his mother. When we tell him to do or not to do something, he obeys us. He's very skilled with the lightsaber but still lacks control of the Force. Well, we have at least ten years to see his progresses. He'll be a very powerful Jedi, like his father."

Of that, I was sure. After Padmè had told me she was pregnant, back that day at the Senate, I had felt it. I could feel that our child was extremely strong with the Force, but it never dawned to me that our child might actually be two children. Well, that explained lots of things.

"And Padmè? How did she deal with me abandoning her?" I asked.

"First of all, you never abandoned her." he stated. "And stop thinking otherwise. Second, she was sad, of course, but she held herself together better than what I had expected. She had her moments of burnout, everyone in her situation would freak out at some point but she did remarkably well actually." he told me, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. "Though looking back, I fear I wasn't so helpful, most of all when the twins where only months old."

I smiled, weary. "I heard you were a little uncomfortable around them."

He frowned. "How do you know?"

"It seems like the Force decided I had to know something about my family. Last year I started having dreams, very vivid dreams about Padmè and the twins. In one of them I saw Padmè telling her sister that you were uncomfortable around the babies." I replied, trying to be as clear as I could, even if I was still a bit stunned.

"Dream uh? Good or bad?"

"Some good, some others bad. Some great!" I added. "Go on."

"Well, there's not so much to say. The moment you ordered me to take her away, I obeyed and asked for Organa's help. He gave us a ship and said to hide and contact him or his wife on Alderaan as soon as the twins were born. We flew to Tatooine, to your brother's homestead and I flew back to Mustafar so I could confront Vader. When I returned, we remained there for about a week, long enough to think about a strategy. We came up with the idea of a fake funeral. With the help of the Queen and of some others we organized an official and public funeral, stating that she died for natural causes. An undetected heart birth defect that showed up during the pregnancy. It worked rather good actually."

"Good enough that it took me a year to find you. Where did you live?"

"Yavin, Alderaan, Tatooine...we moved frequently. Two or three times a year we went to Naboo, but not in the last two years."

"Yeah, Jobal told me. Would you believe me if I tell you I cried when she showed me the holos they had?"

He chuckled again, smiling widely. "I definitely would. Every one in your situation would have cried in a moment like that. A Jedi too."

Yeah, a Jedi. "Master I...I'm sorry." I said then.

"For what?"

"For lying. I spent almost three years lying to you. To everyone actually. I..." I paused for a moment and gathered my thoughts. "I...I let Sidious to instil doubts about the Order in me. And even if I considered you like a father, I never told you anything. I guess Padmè told you about the night at the Tusken camp..."

He nodded. "Yes, she did. She even confessed that it was the first and last time she ever doubted about you. You scared her that morning, you know that?"

I turned my gaze away from him and looked at the white roof of the room. "Yeah, I know. What happened that night scared me too. Still, I lied. And every time I did lie, I made a step closer to the Dark Side. Sincerely, I'm not one to be trusted."

He thought about what to say for a moment, before he spoke. "Anakin, I think you're underestimating yourself and what you've endured during these years. You got really close to the Dark Side, I take that, but look what you did today. I kept an eye on you from up there and I never felt the influence of the Dark Side on you. Even when you confronted Vader." he revealed. "Today you were calm, concentrated...of course you had your bouts of emotions but that's completely understandable given the special situations, but today for the first time you were a Jedi. Seems like after all you gained something after all."

His explanation was quite simple but effective. And he was right. For the first time I had truly behaved like a Jedi.

I was about to reply when the door opened and Janu and a woman, probably the surgeon Obi-Wan talked about, entered. Seeing me awake made them change their expressions.

"You're up kid! How do you feel?" asked Janu looking at a datapad connected to the monitoring systems that continued to gather data about me.

"When I woke up I felt like a wreck but now it's getting better." I said.

"How's your chest?" he asked again, checking my ribs one by one.

"Better. At least I can breath. It still hurts a bit though." he pushed his fingers in the flesh between a rib and the other and I winced. It was the right spot, the one I was talking about.

"Right...this is where the rib punctured the lung. You were bleeding badly. I think you will need another bath in the next few hours." he said writing something on the datapad.

I desperately looked at Obi-Wan. "Do I really need it?"

"I heard you have plans for tonight. And I think you're going to need all your lung capacity to execute them. So, yes, you really need it. It should to something even for your leg."

I sighed. "Damn...I hate bacta baths!"

He pushed again on my rib, making me wince again. "Stop wining like a baby! Even your son was far more collaborative when he broke his arm three years ago!"

"He's an horrible patient. When he arrived at the medical ward of the Temple, medics panicked." revealed Obi-Wan.

"I know. I saved his life quite some time ago. I'm sorry I left that scar but without bacta..."

I lifted my hands, compliantly. "Alright, alright. Just let's make a deal. You wait until Padmè and the kids arrive. Can I live up to that moment?"

He looked at his fellow surgeon, then nodded. "Yes, you can. Just be careful and don't stand up. What time is now?"

"About nine in the morning." Replied the surgeon.

"Alright. I'll come here by noon and you'll stay in the tank for another hour. That should be enough. Now, this is doctor Koros, she's the one that mended your leg and your arm. She needs to check on your leg." he took a few steps away and made room for her.

"Good morning Master Skywalker. How do you feel today?" she asked politely. She was a petite woman, her lab coat seemed to swallow her.

"It's Anakin and I don't feel too bad, all things considered." I replied.

"Do you mind if I check on your leg?" she asked.

"Not at all."

She pulled the sheet that covered me in order to see my splinted leg. Up to that moment I hadn't even thought if I was dressed or not. But as she maneuvered with the splint, she rolled up the leg of a pair of hospital pants. Thank the Force they had redressed me, at least from the waist down.

She unlocked the straps and lifted my leg. Suddenly it started hurting like hell, as if a thousand nails were hammered in my bones in the same moment. "Damn, it hurts!"

She nodded as she moved my leg in order to check the mobility. "I guess so. I don't know how but you managed to break both the tibia and the fibula and parts of the ankle. I had to rebuild part of your joint and the tibia. Move your toes please."

Trying to endure the pain I obeyed. "Good. I'm afraid I have to agree with Janu. You need another bacta bath and after that you need to wear the splint for at least a week, and keep your leg tightly bandaged in order to keep your bones in place." then she secured the splint back to my bandaged leg, then put the covers back in place.

I nodded. Suddenly I missed the zealous job of the Jedi healers, with all their machinery and tissue re-generators. They weren't cheap though, and I understood they had preferred to buy the bacta tanks instead of the re-generators. Even though that meant that my leg couldn't be mended almost instantly. Well, better a splint than a cast.

"Yes doctor."

"Good. Now, let's talk about your arm. From what I see, you worked on it by yourself." she said, sitting next to me. "It made my work a little harder but I think the result is quite awesome."

"Oh yes it is! I couldn't believe it!" I replied.

"Well, it's an experimental technology but it's quite effective. Just be mindful of a couple of things. It doesn't require too much care, synthflesh works exactly like normal skin and delivers the same nervous sensations on the whole surface, not like before when you had touch sensors only on your fingertips. And it's warm too, not cold as durasteel. Which, for a father, is a great thing. It's waterproof and you can use it like a normal arm. But, it needs to be checked from time to time. And it doesn't heal on its own, you need a new implant if you damage the skin. Can you deal with it?"

I nodded. "Yes, I guess I can. Do I need to call you if I need a check up?" I asked wiggling my fingers.

"Only if you need a new implant. Any generic doctor can check on it. It's an easy task after all." she grabbed my newly refined arm and checked the connection of the implant and the real skin. "Well, it's perfect. Now you need rest Anakin. Don't overtire yourself. And don't walk without crutches, at least until your leg hurts when you try to move it."

"Alright."

"Now kid..." started Janu. "Take good care. I'll be back in a few hours to check on you and if after the bath your chest is better I'll let you go home. You Ok with that?" he asked.

I nodded. "Sure I am."

"Great. Now, I know Padmè is coming, she should be here any moment, but please, don't exaggerate. I count on that. You might be better now, but you're still in no condition to start running."

"I'll try."

"And I'm keeping a close eye on you." stated Obi-Wan. "You'll follow his instructions, whether you want it or not."

Surrounded, I couldn't disagree. I would have taken it easy. After all, even Padmè would control me. I had to stick with the doctors orders. "Alright, I'll be careful. I'll take it easy and I won't exaggerate. At least until you say I can be back to normality."

"I like it. Now, we'll leave you to your catch up. See you later kid!"

With that, the doctors exited and left us alone. "What we were talking about?" I asked.

"About lies. I was about to tell you that some of your doubts about the Order were right."

"What?" now that was a huge one.

"After Mustafar, I talked to Master Yoda for quite a long time. He revealed things that I couldn't even think. There were Masters that didn't trust you. At the point that they wanted to expel you right after the Battle of Geonosis. Master Rancisis really pushed for your expulsion but Master Yoda and Windu managed to convince him otherwise. And you were right, we hid things from you. As much as you hid things from us. I knew of your relationship with Padmè, but I didn't say anything. I knew that there were Masters in the Council that didn't really like you, yet I didn't say anything. And..." He stopped for a second. "It was only after we decided to grant you the rank of Master that we realized we had decided for the best. Your future had always been clouded, hazy, hard to define, yet the same moment we announced your new rank, Master Yoda said he could see your future clearly." he revealed.

In the end, that feeling of unsuitability that haunted me wasn't that wrong.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means that you were right. The Council was holding you back, even though against my will and opinion. I knew, as Master Yoda did, that your full potential could only be unleashed if we had left you follow your heart. But the rest of the Council didn't want to let the leash loose."

I took my time to weight his words. Well, some of my doubts had their foundation after all. "Then why did you nominate me a Master?"

"Because we felt it was the right thing to do. You were becoming frustrated and angry, we had to do something or the Republic would have lost its greatest weapon and servant. And I didn't really want to lose you Anakin." he said. "And we were right."

"Wow...that's a big bomb to drop!" I joked.

"A huge one indeed. Not to mention that I knew you were looking for us." he revealed too.

"What the f..." I snapped but he interrupted me before I could curse against him.

"Wait a moment! I learned you were looking for us about two months ago, when I contacted Bail when we first started to plan this attack. He asked me again where we were because Darrick was looking for us, again. At that point I realized that his insistence had something to do with you!" he told me. "And I thought you might have needed some more time to deal with yourself. But...Anakin, are you even listening to me?"

No, I wasn't. I was looking out of the window of the room, where Padmè stood, looking at me. With her, the young smiling faces of my children. I didn't know how long had they been there, I just stared at them, mesmerized. They were there, finally. I was about to cry.

"Master, believe me, what I'm looking at, that's a picture worth a thousand lies."

Obi-Wan turned towards the window and smiled too as he gestured them to come in.

The twins disappeared from the window and the door opened. A split second later, they ran into the room screaming! Ahsoka was right, they were two tiny volcanoes!

"Dad!" they both yelled as they jumped on my bed. I had barely the time to open my arms and prepare for the landing.

"Ouch, my leg!" I grunted as I embraced them, one each arm, as tightly as I could.

"Be careful Squids!" said Padmè from the door. "Dad's not in the best shape now!"

I felt the tears stinging behind my eyelids. "I don't really care now!" I sighed. "They can break my ribs all over again, I don't care!"

"We wouldn't do that!" snapped Leia, looking up at me.

"Oh I know you wouldn't Leia. I know..." I leaned up and kissed her forehead, then I did the same with Luke. "I know..."

"We missed you dad..." mumbled Luke. I could feel their tears slipping on my shoulders. At that point I started crying like a baby too.

"I missed you too, Luke. Both of you. And your mom." I smiled as Leia crawled up and kissed my cheek. "How was the trip?" I asked as Padmè fetched a chair and sat down near my hospital bed.

"They were incredibly noisy and agitated. But that's understandable in the end." she said quietly. "It was probably the loudest space trip I ever endured. Even Aleha couldn't believe they could make such a noise."

"They were over-excited..." started Obi-Wan. "They knew they were meeting their dad soon, I wouldn't blame them."

"No one is going to blame anyone." I said, holding my kids tightly, even if my chest hurt a bit. "But at least you could have behaved. After all, I was here, I'm in no condition to go away!"

"But dad!" started Luke. Man, looking at him was like looking in a mirror. He was, I don't know, a clone! I saw in him my own reflection when I was his age.

"No excuses Luke! It might be the first time I see you but after all I'm your father and it's not like I'm going to spoil you because I'm the newcomer here." I said, suddenly serious. "There was no need to make such a fuss!"

I saw Padmè and Obi-Wan exchanging an amused look. "Well, after all, it seems like he knows what to do!"

"He always knows what to do. The problem is that sometimes he takes the long way around!" she said taking my hand in hers.

"Don't listen to your mom. I'm not that messy!" I whispered to Luke and Leia. They started giggling and moving around. "Ouch...please, Leia, don't move that much. My chest still hurts."

They both stopped and lay still. "Sorry dad." she mumbled.

"Not a problem Squid. Don't worry." I lay back against the pillow and sighed. Tears where slipping from my eyes uncontrollably, but I didn't care. I had learned that crying wasn't a sign of weakness. Most of all if they were happy tears. And in that moment, I was definitely ecstatic.

"When will you be released from the hospita?" asked Leia.

"I don't know. The doctor said I still need another hour in the bacta tank, then they will decide. But definitely today. I hate hospitals and believe me, even if I have to walk with the crutches for a week, today I'm coming home with you, I don't care if the doctors don't agree." I answered, smiling widely at her.

"Speaking of which, how do you feel?" asked Padmè, a bit worried.

"Not bad. My chest hurts but it's bearable. And as long as I don't move my leg, it's fine. I've been worse."

"No Anakin, you haven't been worse. Not that I remember!" said Obi-Wan.

"That's the part of the story I haven't told you yet." I replied. "And I don't want to talk about it now."

It was a perfect moment. I had my kids in my arms, I was holding them for the first time. They were fine, strong and happy, not to mention that they were just wonderful. My wife was finally beside me, holding my hand as I held hers, and my best friend, the man I considered a father, the same man eight years before I had trusted to protect my family, was there too. That adventure was over. From that moment on, everything would have been different. I had to learn how to be a father, a husband and a Jedi altogether. But with them at my side, it would have been easier.

Finally.

I was deeply buried in my thoughts that when the sliding door opened with a hiss I almost jumped off the bed. Through the doorstep, I saw Dakk, Haron and Jag peeking through the door. "Can we come in?"

Yeah, finally, life was good.


	34. All My Agony Fades Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: Within Temptation - All I Need

**Chapter 34 – All My Agony Fades Away**

Dakk, Haron and Jag shyly entered in the room. "We don't want to disturb you now Anakin." said Dakk, his voice so low I could barely hear him.

"Not a problem, come on. Get in!" I told them. They obeyed, even if they looked rather uncomfortable.

"I..." started Haron. "We are here to see how you're doing! And because Captain Antilles wanted this to be delivered to Master Kenobi."

"Oh, sure." Obi-Wan stood up and took the datapad. "Thank you. By the way, I'm Obi-Wan, Anakin's former Master." he held out his hand toward them.

"It's an honor Master Kenobi." replied Dakk as they shook hands.

"You must be part of the team that built the X-Wing!" exclaimed Padmè, scrutinizing them from head to feet. They were fine, no signs of injuries during the battles, I didn't understand their long faces!

"Yes ma'am. And you must be Anakin's wife!"

"I guess I am!" she smiled and stood up. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure is all ours Milady" he replied politely as he bowed respectfully. Dakk really knew how to behave.

"Please, call me Padmè. I've been a civilian for so long I tend to forget that once I was a Senator." she said as she sat down again on her chair.

"And these are Luke and Leia." I completed the introducing.

"Well Anakin, that was quite obvious!" joked Dakk. "Anyway, nice to meet you too."

"Nice to meet you!" the twins jumped off the bed and bowed, then they returned to their original position. It seemed they were going to plant roots on that bed. Well, not that I minded.

"So, rumors say you managed to make a miracle." said Jag, folding his arms across his chest.

"Well, it was not a miracle. Just a suicide mission." I replied. "It wasn't even that hard actually."

"Oh yes, tell that to your leg and your ribs!" added Padmè. "And to be completely sincere, I was scared to death."

I sighed. "Come on! On Geonosis it was worse, admit it!"

"Geonosis was definitely worse! You two were supposed to remain on Naboo, not coming after me! Look what happened that day!" interjected Obi-Wan lifting his eyes from the datapad.

"What happened Dad?" asked Luke.

"The Clone Wars started that day." I answered.

"No wait a second!" almost shouted Jag. "You both participated to the First Battle Of Geonosis?" he asked pointing at me and Padmè.

"Obi-Wan was there too. And yes, we both participated. I have the scars to prove it." replied Padmè. "That day I proved to be more than just a boring Senator!"

"You've never been a boring Senator, considering the way you commanded the assault to the Royal Palace during the Battle of Theed!" mumbled Obi-Wan going back to his orders and stuff.

"Captain Typho did most of the job, and you and Master Qui Gonn did the rest."

"Hey, what about me? Who was the pilot that blew the droid control ship?" I added.

They exchanged a look and sighed. "You!"

Jag, Dakk and Haron were speechless. "Excuse me Anakin but..." started Haron. "You deliberately avoided to tell us all of these things or you just forgot it?"

I laughed hard, even though my chest protested. "No Haron, probably I just forgot it. And what about you? How are you doing?"

Suddenly their faces darkened. "Well, Anakin...we have to tell you something." said Haron.

At that point I felt the sting of the worry creeping in my mind. "What's going on?"

"During the battle we had some losses. Actually, we lost twenty pilots." he said, slowly.

"Well of course, I had considered it. It was a space battle after all not a pillow fight!" I replied.

"The fact is that...damn I don't know how to tell you...well, the fact is that Matt, Jon and Sijon were among them."

Silence fell in the room. For an endless moment I felt the anger rising up in my heart then it subsided, replaced by a sense of sorrow that overcame it.

"Damn..." I groaned leaning back on the pillows. "Damn it..."

"That's why we didn't want to disturb you. We didn't want to ruin your moment!" replied Haron.

I took a deep breath. "No, no it's alright. After all, you should have told me, sooner or later. It's just...that I didn't expect it."

Padmè took my hand in hers and held it tightly. "I'm sorry Anakin..."

I felt the tears stinging my eyes. "It's just that...they were..." I took another deep breath, though it was ragged and halting. I felt something gripping my throat and it was getting harder to breathe. "They were my friends damn it!"

"Listen, Anakin...now, we're going. We leave you with your family, you deserve it. And I'm sorry we ruined this moment. I'm really sorry. Captain Antilles said that there will be a commemoration ceremony in three days. I hope we'll see you there."

I nodded, shaking. "Yes. I'll be there, for sure." I sniffled. "Don't worry, we'll come."

He nodded. "Alright. Take care Anakin. It was an honor to meet you."

Then they walked out of the door.

I tentatively wiped the tears from my face. "I'm sorry I...I shouldn't be crying like this..."

"It's normal Anakin. Don't worry. They were your friends, it's alright!"

I felt the twins tighten their holds on me, moving even closer to me. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down but all I could muster was a shaky intake of air that moved my troubled ribs enough to make me cough and howl in pain. If years before I would have got incredibly angry and irascible, now I tended to become incredibly emotional. I don't know what's worse.

"I'm...I'm sorry." suddenly I felt like I had a slab of durasteel on my chest, I could hardly breathe, I barely managed to keep my eyes opened. The throbbing in my head returned at full force. There was something wrong in me.

"Anakin, calm down." started Obi-Wan. "I know you're hurt, but now you really need to settle down. You're grieving, and we understand that. You lost friends and that's tragic, but for your own sake, get a grip on yourself! Your heartbeat is skyrocketing!" he said looking at the monitor above my head.

"Squids, get down for a moment!" said Padmè. Then she sat down beside me and took my hands in hers. "Anakin, listen to me. It's a panic attack, nothing more. Calm down." she spoke softly, her voice was a low soothing whisper. "Anie, calm down. It's ok Anakin! You can cry, no one is going to blame you!"

I stared into her eyes for a long moment and as fast as that feeling of constriction came, it went away. "Good. Now, take a deep breath and lay down here. Too much emotions for you now. Don't overdo, ok?"

I nodded, wearily. "Relax Anakin. Everything will be alright. Just wait a moment and you'll be fine."

"Do I have to call a doctor?" asked Obi-Wan.

She smiled, her eyes never leaving mine. "It won't be necessary. He's already quiet." she picked Leia and Luke up and they sneaked back in their places. "Stay here and keep him quiet, understood?"

They nodded. "Sure mom." answered Leia, then she lay her head down on my shoulder and blocked me. I couldn't move, but this time I was pinned down by the sweetest weight of the world.

"Sleep now, all of you." she ordered. "I going to talk to Janu about your release and I'll see if we can anticipate your bacta bath, so we can gain some time." she kissed my forehead. "Clear?"

"Clear." she stood up and walked towards the door. "I love you!" I said.

She turned before she went out of the room. "I love you too!"

I slept for about an hour before Janu stormed into the room and woke me up. Obi-Wan was still reading through the reports of the attack on his datapad. Padmè soon followed then two hospital nurse entered, pushing a stretcher in.

"Ready for your bath?" said Janu loudly.

"I guess I don't have any choice!" I replied drowsily.

"Good boy. Kids, come on, jump off the bed. We need to take care of your dad!" they silently obeyed and went straight towards their mother. "Can you move from the bed to the stretcher?" he asked.

I nodded. "I should. I just need some help with my leg."

"Ok. Now, be careful."

Trying to move as quick as I could, I moved from the bed to the stretcher and lay there, dreading the next hour I would have to spend in that tank. I took a deep breath, resigned. I had to follow the doctor's order after all, if I wanted to go home with my family that day.

"It won't be long Anakin. You'll be back in no time." he said. "If you want, we won't even sedate you, so you can stay awake during the process, and talk to your family."

I was about to answer when Obi-Wan took a step forward and spoke.

"Janu, please, put him to sleep. Not an hour ago he came to knowledge that some of his closest friends perished in the attack and he was a step away from a panic attack. He needs to sleep."

"Alright, you sleep through the procedure."

I threw a very angry stare to Obi-Wan. "You'll pay for this one!"

"Yeah, like you still believe I will" he shouted back.

I sighed. "See who's the one that raised me?"

Anyway, the fact that they put me to sleep during the whole bath, made time pass faster. The effect of the drug started wearing off when they were pulling me out the tank. I was still dripping when I regained consciousness. I didn't feel that bad, after that supplemental hour of bacta, my ribs felt a lot better. My leg still needed to be confined, but it wasn't throbbing anymore.

When I was enough lucid to stand up, they guided me to a service bathroom and allowed me to take a shower and wash away the foul stench of bacta. That smell tended to stick to clothes and skin for days and I really couldn't stand it. The hard thing was the fact that I had to walk on crutches, which made me rather unstable, most of all with the anesthetic wearing off.

Padmè helped a lot, especially when it came to get dressed. Obi-Wan borrowed one of his tunics, considering that mine was ruined, and when I was done, I slowly headed towards the infirmary. Janu and doctor Koros quickly checked on me. According to them, I was healthy enough to travel back to Dantooine. He would come over there in seven days to check on my leg and the rest of my injuries, but up to that moment, I was free to go. I only needed to take it easy.

It wasn't even noon when Obi-Wan got the ship ready so we could get to Dantooine and set there for the week of convalescence they had ordered. The twins were impatiently looking forward to show me what they had learned during their apprenticeship with Obi-Wan and they wanted me to tell everything.

Padmè tried to hold back their enthusiasm but they were impossible to contain. Thankfully, both Aleha and Hilean decided to join us at the last minute, so the kids would have a distraction for the trip. As soon as the ship had set off, they started running all around the rather large cockpit and the cargo compartment, leaving us adults a moment to talk quietly.

I still felt groggy and I was rather prone to fall asleep in the middle of the conversation but, heck, I had all the rights, considering the huge amount of anesthetics and sleeping drugs they had injected in my system. I was tired! And the fact that I was laying on the passenger bench, my leg hoisted on a plasteel box and my head propped up in Padmè's lap, well, believe me, I was in heaven.

Halfway through the trip, I was dozing when I felt Padmè gently shaking my shoulder. "Anakin...Anakin wake up!"

Startled, I opened my eyes. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing, you were just snoring." she smiled.

I rolled my eyes. "I'm sorry. Sometimes it happens."

She leaned over me and kissed me. "Don't worry Ani." she pulled back a strand of rebellious hair. "Everything is fine. Even the kids settled down."

"Good. What were you talking about?" I asked rubbing my eyes.

"You of course." replied Obi-Wan from his pilot seat. "Aleha was just telling us how you dealt with that thug in that cantina, some weeks ago."

"Oh, that was nothing. A minor inconvenience." I replied, yawning.

"Well, it was fun to watch. How do you feel?" asked Aleha.

"Fine. Sleepy, but fine. Damn, last time I felt like this, I had woken up after a week of unconsciousness." I groaned as I stretched my neck.

"What happened?" asked Padmè.

"I...well, it was a couple of days I had managed to get out of prison and I headed to Naboo. I hoped to find out where you were hiding from your parents and unfortunately I got involved in a fight with a squad of troopers. There was an explosion and I was wounded." I explained. "I managed to arrive at your parents' house and after they understood who I was, they called Janu and he saved my life. It was a pretty bad wound. It's the scar he was talking about when he visited me when I first woke up!"

"Did it happen about a year ago?" Asked Obi-Wan, curiously. I nodded. "Do you think it might be related to Luke's dream?" he asked Padmè.

She was about to reply when I stopped her. "It's definitely related to Luke's dream. I can assure you!"

They all looked at me as if I had said the strangest thing in the Galaxy. "How do you know?"

"Well, as I told Obi-Wan some hours ago, ever since I got out of prison I've had dreams. Some good, some bad...usual stuff. But many of them were fragments of your life." I told them. "The first one I had it was that one. I remember that Luke didn't want to wake up because he had this dream about me being hurt."

"Well, I hope those dreams helped you feeling a little better!" said Padmè stroking my hair gently. I was about to start purring like a kitten.

"Sometimes..." I groaned. "Anyway, Master, I thought you were going to give me one of your unforgettable lectures about the Jedi Code and how many laws I broke!"

He chuckled, leaning back on his chair. "Well, at first I thought it myself, but that was years ago, when I thought you would get out of prison earlier. But after a couple of months I gradually started understanding why you did it. After all, I had to try and understand."

"And, Anakin, consider my own special relationship with Jax..." started Aleha. "He should have killed me on sight when I came for help, years ago."

At that point I saw Luke peering through the door from the cargo space. "Hey Luke, what's up?" I asked.

"I need a place to hide..." he said stepping in the crew part.

"Come here, I have the perfect place..." I pointed at the underside of the bench I was laying on. He crawled underneath it and I covered the space with my cloak. "Stay there and don't move!"

The others started chuckling when we saw Leia looking through the doorstep, inspecting the room looking for her brother. "Did Luke hide in here?" she asked.

We all shook our heads. "No Leia, he's not here." said Padmè. Even though she wasn't sure, Leia went on looking for Luke and Hilean. Soon after she had turned away from the door, Luke came out from his hiding place and silently thanked his mother, then he ran away.

When we arrived at the base, Obi-Wan landed the ship and we jumped off. I still walked around gingerly, unsteady on the crutches but both Padmè and Obi-Wan helped me a lot. Of course, news of my suicide mission and my role in getting the base bombed down had arrived even there and when we stepped in the dormitory quarters we were hailed with the loudest applause. I was again the hero of the situation, the idol of the masses. And I admit that it was good. After so much time in the shadows, being able to enjoy the results of my actions with my family at my side it made the feeling even better.

At some point, Darrick arrived and guided us to the private accommodations that had been prepared for us. It was actually a special apartment that they usually occupied when they stayed at the base. It didn't happen often, but they could show up anytime so they kept a special space for them ready at any time. He had took care of moving my things there too. It was a small apartment, with three bedrooms, a small living room and a bathroom. Nothing fancy, but it was functional. We took some time to settle there then Obi-Wan insisted that it was time for the kids to do some exercise considering that it had been a week since they had a full, controlled, training session. They protested, but when I offered to assist, they resigned and agreed. I asked Padmè if she would come with us but she had to refuse. She had to report to the other Senators and there was an incoming call for her to answer in the main control level.

Therefore, we grabbed our lightsabers and crutches and we headed towards the training grounds, three levels above us. Fortunately, it was almost empty. There were a couple of guys that were doing weight lifting in the corner of the large room but the main combat training area was clear.

I sat down on a bench and silently watched as Obi-Wan instructed them to prepare for some saber training. I lay the crutches down and relaxed.

Finally, I could relax. Even though just a few hours earlier I had received the news that three of my best friends had died, I was calm. I had the chance just to sit down and watch for once, and the view was incredible. The twins were already up to deflect the blasts from the small training remotes. Leia was incredibly precise and her movements were smooth and fluids, but Luke, he was a bit more clumsy. Obi-Wan instructed him, told him to rely on the Force more than on his eyes, but still he moved briskly, as if the handlers of his lightsaber was hurting him. Then an idea sparked in my mind.

"Master, can I interrupt you for a moment?" I asked from my place.

"Sure Anakin." he replied. The twins turned their weapons off and waited for me.

I clumsily walked towards them and carefully knelt beside Luke. "Luke, is there something wrong with your saber?" I asked.

He nodded. "I don't know why, but it stings!" he told me as he handed his weapon.

I held it tightly and the chromed handler was warm. Too warm. I turned it on and I suddenly felt the tiniest electrical discharge. "Ouch! Damn it, there a problem with this thing Obi-Wan!" I opened it, removed the power supply and checked the cables.

"What problem?"

"This one." I pointed at a jam in the wiring. I moved the cables around and pinched them together tightly. "Here, now it should work." I closed the handler and gave it back to my son. "And, I noticed you tend to make wide movements. When you parry a blast on your left side, don't cross your wrists like that. Us the part of the blade that's close to the handler." I showed him what I meant. "Don't exaggerate. Use only the energy you need, or you'll end up tired after ten minutes of fight!"

He nodded. "Thanks Dad."

"Not a problem. And you, Leia...if your mother would have been trained as a Jedi, she would have fought like you!" I told her. "You're an elegant fighter."

She blushed and tried to hide behind her brother. "Thanks..." she mumbled.

"No need to thank me. I'm serious. Now, go back to your training. Come on!"

They went back to their and I went back to my bench. Slowly, I was getting better. The drowsiness and the clumsiness were wearing off with the drugs, my chest was doing remarkably well, even with the effort of walking around on crutches and my leg wasn't doing bad. It was just slightly sore, but it didn't hurt as much as before the second bacta bath.

As I sat there, watching my children doing the same kind of training that I had endured almost twenty years before, I realized how much I still relied on those long hours of workout with the training remote. When you grow up and become more and more killed in sword fight you tend to forget how much you worked to become the warrior you are. When you are a kid, you don't realize it. It's just in these kind of situations, when you're watching someone else training, that you actually realize how much you owe to your teacher and those long, boring hours of deflecting blasters shots.

I took a long breath and leaned back on the bench. And as much as I relied on my years and years of training, I had come to rely on the friendship of the guys on Dxun during that year, more than what I had realized. Their death was incredibly painful to accept. Most of all Sijon. He was such a nice guy, always smiling and trying to apologize for his bad snoring. He was one of those that helped me more when I was depressed.

It was just unfair. I mean, they were just mechanics! They weren't professional pilots. They weren't even the best of the course, they shouldn't even have been in the squads. They were more talented with an engine than with a space ship. They should have remained on Dantooine, that's it.

But it's useless crying over spilt bluemilk. I would have never seen them again, and of course their memory would have always remained with me but I had learned, years before, that I couldn't stop people from dying. And the scene that I had in front of me, the fact that I was again with Padmè, that I had found my family and my friends again, well, made my agony fade away like water with thirst.

"Hey, Luke!" I shouted. "Those hands! Keep them on the hilt. Hold it tightly!" he had the tendency to keep a loose grip and each deflected blast sent the blade tilting backwards towards him. It was dangerous, because if he kept that bad habit, one day or another, a heavy blast could have launched his weapon out of reach. And that's not good.

"I'll try."

"Do it Luke! Don't try. Just do it!" I replied.

They weren't concentrated, I could feel it. That wasn't good for their training. Obi-Wan seemed to think the same. He interrupted and corrected them quite often, never leaving them the chance to make a mistake that could ruin their day.

Well, it was late afternoon when finally Obi-Wan called the training session off. We were all tired, the kids were exhausted and distracted. Padmè hadn't arrived yet and Obi-Wan offered to go and look for her while I took care of the twins. He headed straight to the command center and we slowly walked to our temporary quarters.

"So, what do you think?" asked Leia at some point. They were walking a couple of steps ahead of me while I still had some issues with the crutches.

"Well, I never taught to anyone of your age but I can tell you that if you concentrate a bit more you're going to be two great Jedi!" I told them. It was true in the end.

"Really?" the echoed.

"Of course!" slowly we arrived to our door. "Come on, let's get inside. You two need a shower."

"Definitely!" said Luke as he opened the door. "It always feels good after practice."

"Yeah, I know the feeling. Who goes first?" I sat down on a chair and rested for a moment.

"Luke. He holds on the fact that he was born three minutes earlier than me!" said Leia sitting in front of me. She unhooked his lightsaber from her belt and put it on the table.

"Well, at least it spares you hours of bickering around stupid things!" I replied. "Do you need help?"

He shook his head. "No, we've been here quite often, and mom wants us to be as independent as we can." there were a couple of suitcases in their bedroom and from my place I could see him rummaging through his clothes. "I won't be long. Don't worry!"

Then he closed the door behind him.

"So...how's your leg?" asked Leia, breaking the silence.

"Well, let me tell you the truth but...it hurts like hell!" I exclaimed. "But don't tell your mom, she would start hovering on me."

"Yes, she tends to hover when me and Luke are not fine." she laughed. "I admit that she's a bit overprotective."

That was strange. "Really? She's never been overprotective with me!" I replied. "Well, over-worried, yes, but she had all her reasons."

"Definitely. You were always somewhere in the galaxy against hordes of droids!" she crossed her arms and laid them on the table. "I would have been worried too."

"It's not like I wanted to be so far away all the time! You know, every time I had a spare moment, we spent it together but it was never enough. And when I found out Palpatine's plan, well, it was too late."

"Mom told us the story. At least I think she told us, she's always been reluctant to talk about what happened." she laid her head on her arms. "I think she believes we're too young to know."

"Leia, listen...it's a long story and it's not a fairy tale. She's probably right. One day we'll tell you what happened but, right now, all you and your brother need to know is that everything we did, we did it for your safety. Even if I had to stay away for so long."

"I understand that. It's just...I don't like when people lie. I hate it. And most of all I hate when my own mother hides things from me!"

"I hate it too." Luke said as he opened the door of the bathroom, toweling his hair dry. "It's...unnerving! I mean. She's our mother and she's avoiding some matters deliberately. And those matters are part of our own past!" he said as he sat down at the table himself.

"Luke, really...it's part of being a kid. Adults keep things from you, and it's perfectly normal!" I answered. "I remember how I felt when my own mom avoided some matters, some truths I wanted to know. She never told me who my father was, can you believe it?"

"No way!" they shouted in unison.

I nodded. "I'm deadly serious! And now that I'm thirty one years old, I still don't know!" I said. "But now I don't really need to know it."

The conversation was getting interesting when the door opened with a loud hiss and Obi-Wan appeared. "Bad, bad news. Padmè won't be here for I don't know how many hours. The senators and the high generals practically kidnapped her."

I saw the delusion painted on the twins faces. They both sighed and their shoulders sagged down. "That's another thing I hate about mom. When we're here, she's always busy." said Luke, and Leia nodded her agreement.

"Oh come on! Tonight you have your father here! You should be extremely over-joyous!" said Obi-Wan sitting at the table himself.

"Master, it's fantastic but...for the first time we have our family together and the Generals keep mom away!" whined Luke. "Damn it!"

"Hey, watch your language!" I scolded him.

"Dad!"

"Luke, he's right." said Obi-Wan. "You two are exaggerating now. Calm down!"

They sighed again. "Yes Master." they said.

He shook his head, smiling. "You see that? The same tone of yours! I really hoped they would have inherited their mother's ability to be always reasonable. Instead I had not only one but two incredibly hardheaded Padawans!"

"Well, you're already prepared for what you have to expect!"

Well, the late afternoon and evening were incredibly pleasant. We went to the refectory for dinner and me and Obi-Wan spent the whole time telling stories about my apprenticeship and our missions all around the Galaxy. We carefully avoided the gory stories, but we managed to make them laugh all the time. We laughed so much that my chest hurt at some point.

When we returned to the apartment, the twins started showing sings of tiredness. All the excitement of the day now took its tall. They were dragging their feet and swaying around as we walked. They were exhausted, to say the least.

"Come on you two, it's time for bed!" I said.

"But Dad!" whined Leia. "We're not tired!"

"You're exhausted, not tired. Come on, let's get prepared for bed and if you want you can wait for mom with me." I replied. "Come on!"

They disappeared in their room. Obi-Wan remained there for a moment. "I think I going to try and find Darrick, we have many things to talk about."

"Are you sure you don't want to stay?" I asked, slowly leaning on the couch.

"Yes Anakin, I'm sure. You need your time with your children and I have many things to do. And one of these things is getting your wife here. She's been gone for too long." he said. "You stay here with the kids and relax. That leg is still troubling you."

"How do you know?"

He smiled, briefly. "Even a youngling could sense your pain. That was a heck of a surgery, you'll need time to heal completely!"

"I guess so...I fear I'll have some troubles sleeping tonight!"

"Hey, I thought I was going to be the one in trouble! I even asked if I could take your place in your dorm room!" he joked.

I think I blushed like a school girl. "I'm sorry Master...I wish I wouldn't have said that!"

"No problems Anakin. I told you, there's no need to be sorry. Just pay attention to that leg!" he opened the door and stepped outside. "Have a good night Anakin."

"Thanks Master. Have a good night too!"

The front door closed the same moment Luke and Leia came out of their room. They were actually ready for bedtime, but I had the feeling they would try to delay it as long as they could, even though it was evident that they were tired. They sat down beside me on the couch and hugged me, as I did with them.

"So, ready for bed?" I asked.

"Can we wait until mom arrives?" asked Leia as she laid her head on my shoulder.

"I guess that will be acceptable." I replied. "But what can we do now?"

Luke yawned, deeply. "Can you tell us something about the Bonta Eve race?"

"The Bonta Eve? Wow...I'd love to! What do you know about it?" I asked.

"That you saved mom and Master Qui-Gon there." said Leia. "And that you are the only human that managed to completed it!"

"Oh, there's a lot more to tell! Come on! It's the Bonta Eve! One day I'll take you there, if they still organize it!"

Anyway, I started telling them the story. A rather long story, longer than I could have imagined. Recalling it, I realized it was one of the best memories of my life, even if in the end I had to leave my mother there on Tatooine. But the whole thing was just amazing. And the twins listened eagerly to every words. At least, they listened until they fell asleep. They were so cute! Leia had curled up on her side, her head on my leg and Luke was still half sitting, his hand gripped my shirt hard. It was impossible for me to move, and even if I could have, I would have remained there. It was nearly perfect. If only Padmè could have been there! And if my leg would stop throbbing! As the painkillers wore off, it hurt more any minute, even if I kept it immobilized and didn't put too much weight on it.

About an hour after Obi-Wan had left, I heard the door open, and Padmè finally appeared. I gestured her to keep quiet. She quickly looked at us and smiled. "I dreamed this scenes so many times that I can't even count them!" she whispered.

"Don't tell me! Can we put them in bed?" I asked, my voice as low as hers.

She nodded and kneeled beside the couch. She sneaked her arms under Leia and gently picked her up. "Come on Squid let's get to bed!" she said as she stood. "Oh dear, she's getting heavy!"

"They're growing up, I guess it's normal!" gingerly I placed my right arm under Luke's legs and hoisted him up and making leverage on the left crutch I managed to stand up myself. "I guess they're not feathers anymore!"

"They've never been actually." she took Luke from my arm and headed to their bedroom. I slowly followed her. She knelt beside his bed and laid him down, then covered him and tucked him in. He quickly turned on his tummy and hugged his pillow tightly. Leia was still sleeping on her side, her arm tucked under her head and a peaceful expression stamped on her face. They were perfect. Absolutely perfect.

A quick, last check and she headed out of the room, turning off the light and closing the door. "Finally...I though this hour would never come!"

"They were exhausted. I think they will oversleep tomorrow!" I replied. "You Ok?"

She took a step towards me and hugged me tightly. "Now, yes. I'm OK." she sighed. "I just hate long meetings!"

That made me smile. "Ten years ago they were your daily fix!"

"Ten years ago! Ten years and many things ago. I've been out of business for too long and I admit I love my civilian life. Most of all now that you're here!"

I leaned down and kissed her. "I love you..."

"I love you too..."

We stared into each other eyes for a moment before she leaned up and kissed me again, this time more passionately. I felt her fingers tangling in my hair and I had to hold tightly on the crutches to stand up straight. I felt lightheaded when I felt her soft lips on mine...it was...I mean, awesome.

I let go one crutch and circled her waist, pulling her closer to me. Having her so close...it still felt like all those years before. I could literally feel her through the Force, and it was intoxicating.

Her hands slowly sneaked to the front of my shirt and started unbuttoning it. I was about to do the same when I set my injured leg down and I felt a sharp sting coursing through my body. I jerked away and stepped back. "Damn it!" I cursed.

Without a word, she picked up the fallen crutch and smiling, she slowly walked towards our own bedroom. She was so sexy...damn it, I felt all my blood pooling southward and my mind getting fuzzed. I heard the zip of her flight suit open with a low hiss and she let it slide down her shoulders and fall down on the floor. Alright, I admit I was practically drooling. As quickly as I could I stumbled towards her and closed the door behind me.


	35. While The Night Still Hides The Withering Dawn

**Chapter 35 – While The Night Still Hides The Withering Dawn**

_A deep breath. It was everything he wanted in that moment. A deep breath of cool and clean air. Something that since many years before was impossible to him. He sat there, in his private chamber in his own mansion on Coruscant. It was the only place he could breath without his mask. His own meditation chamber. The only place he could actually find some relief from the uncomfortable suit, the continue pain in what remained of his limbs and the continue going up and down the Galaxy, bringing fear and terror to Imperial Officers and from time to time to unruly governors that didn't follow the Emperor's decisions._

_That was his own sanctuary._

_But that day, it didn't really work._

_Skywalker had almost killed him and that made him angry. He felt the wrath seeding in him as he though about how close he had come to take hold on the greatest danger on his own life and position and destroy him._

_And he had failed. And almost got killed in the process. He ran his gloved hands on his bald head and sighed. When his troops had found him, he was nothing more than a hapless figure struggling for his next breath as his damaged lungs couldn't almost bare it. The medic droids had fixed his respirator and the damage caused to his limbs by the fall. He had managed to find shelter from the bombs at least, but his right let was badly damaged. And the Emperor, his Master, was terribly disappointed in him. He had failed and he had even had the bravery to come and ask for forgiveness. That wasn't the Sith way!_

_He had failed. And had to make amend at his Master's eyes._

_He looked up at the stark white ceiling and gritted his teeth. He wanted to shout but without his mask and his voice processor, his voice was a low, grunting like whisper. "Damn you Skywalker! I'll find you, one day or another!"_

I woke up almost jumping up straight on the bed, with the sense of dread that always followed any dream I had about Vader. I felt disoriented and I couldn't remember where I was. I searched the darkness for a clue of my surroundings, until I recalled what happened the day before and suddenly I calmed down a bit.

I felt Padmè, still deeply asleep beside me with her head on my shoulder, gently stir for a moment. As she felt me move, unconsciously her arm sneaked around my chest and hugged me. Fortunately I didn't wake her up. She was sleeping so peacefully, I would have been a crime to wake her.

I laid back on the pillow and sighed. Vader was alive. Damn it. You know, I was hoping that the fall and the bombing would kill him so much that I really thought he was dead. At least for a day or two. It was such a reassuring hope that I was clinging to it as if the future of the Galaxy depended on it. Well, partially it did, considering that Vader was the only way the Emperor had to maintain a certain level of fear in the Galaxy. Well, he was really creepy, that was true. His image would scare the guts out of everyone in the universe. And I'm not counting myself out, he scared me too.

He scared the guts out of me actually. And the fact that even fighting at my best I had to rely on a cheap trick to defeat him, for that moment well...it scared me even more. I could have killed him straight away, with his fragile life-support system damaged and everything, I really could have killed him there and then, but I hesitated. I could have wiped one of the worst enemies of peace away just two days ago. And I hesitated. I should have thought that if he had survived after the showdown on Mustafar, he could have survived the fall and the bombing long enough for his troops to find him. That man had a durasteel will to live, that's sure. Once again, I found more similarities between us than differences.

I took a deep calming breath and as slowly as I could, I stretched my limbs and tried to relax. Too bad the movement ignited a sharp pain from my ankle and up to my leg. It was nasty enough to make me moan in pain. And that was loud enough to wake her up. She jolted awake in a split second and propped herself on her elbow.

"Anakin, are you alright?" she asked, her voice a bit muffled.

"It's my leg. It still hurts..." I whined. "It's getting worse."

"It's the price for healing!" she said rubbing her eyes. "I should have something for the pain in the bathroom. I'll go for it..." she made the gesture to get out of the bed but my arm slipped around her and pinned her down on the bed.

"You stay here. I can deal with the pain, don't worry."

She turned on her side and rested her head on her hand. "Are you sure?"

I nodded. "Yes, I'm sure. I just need to leave it queit for a moment and it will pass."

She chuckled softly. "You didn't rest that leg as much as the doctor told you tonight!"

"It was worth it! And don't tell me otherwise!" I gingerly sat up and checked on the splint. I pulled the velcro straps a little tighter, hoping it would hold my leg together better, then laid down again and smiled. "Wow...it was better than my dreams!"

She snuggled closer and laid her head on my shoulder again. "Seems like after eight years we can still fire it up!" she joked. "Even with an injured leg and six broken ribs"

"We're like propeller and flames...we're explosive!"

"We started a war after all! We're doomed to be explosive!" she replied. "Anyway, are you sure about that leg? You don't look that good!"

I frowned a bit. "Really? How do I look like?"

"Like you just saw a ghost that broke your leg in three pieces. Come on, it won't take long! And it would make me feel better!" she practically begged me. She was really worried about my health and the pain I was enduring.

With all her insistence I had to give up. "Alright." I released her and, smiling, she got out of bed, grabbed her nightgown on a chair beside the bed and as she walked to the bathroom she donned it. As I watched her walking away, I took a deep breath and stretched my arms above my head. Except for the leg and a minor neck pain, I was doing incredibly well, even with that couple of hours of hard work, some hours before. I found myself smiling like an idiot rethinking about those two hours...some says that a passionate hour is never a wasted hour, well, I did agree totally. Two hours well, it was even better. Best way to reconnect after eight years apart. Definitely...

I grabbed my watch on the nightstand. I thought it was still early, but it was actually almost five in the morning. We had slept a lot more than what I had thought. Well, we were exhausted. Soon the base would buzz with activity, most of all after such an important battle and Padmè's presence would be demanded here and there, not to mention mine. And there was the commemoration! Probably they needed time and help to organize it...I owned those guys too much, I had to help them somehow.

Padmè returned quite fast, holding a glass of water and a bottle. "Ready?"

"No syringe this time?" I asked as I sat up.

"No, not this time. It's just a minor painkiller, I fear it won't be that effective!" she said handing me the glass. "It's mild enough so the kids can take it too, if they need it."

"Just give me a couple of pills...if they can make the pain a bit better, it will be enough. Damn, it's really hardly bearable!" I confessed.

She took three pills out of the bottle and handed them to me. "I knew you didn't feel that good. I could read it on your face!" I swallowed the pills with a sip of water and she took it from me. "I had some training with the kids during the years."

"Do they get sick that often?"

She shook her head. "No, actually, the last time they got sick they were really young but Leia tends to suffer from headaches and Luke is as reckless as you. He gets bumps and cuts every day. I always have antiseptic and bandages at hand." she said. "After all, every mother becomes a nurse in the end!"

"I guess you're right." I laid back on the bed. "But that doesn't mean you have to be my nurse! I don't want to be a problem."

She leaned over and kissed me lightly. "You're never a problem. And you're hurt because you wanted to protect me, I owe you!"

"You don't owe me anything Padmè, you know that"

She sneaked under the covers again and turned on her side, propping her head on her hand. "Yes I do. You sacrificed yourself to save me too many times. By the way, don't you think it's time for some explanations?" she asked.

I sighed. I really hoped that time would come later. Much later actually. "Yes, it is. What do you want to know?"

She took my hand in hers. "They tortured you, didn't they?"

I nodded. "Yes. When Sidious saw that his psychological tricks didn't work, he thought that physical pain could make me turn to the Dark Side. But he underestimated my resistance and my will to return to you."

"How often?"

"Two, sometimes three times per month. They gave me the time to heal almost completely, then they started all over again. I admit that there were moments I almost faltered and I really wanted to kill them, but I managed to maintain a semblance of control and keep quiet. Sometimes Vader came and tortured me himself!" I felt her fingers squeezing my hand tightly in reaction of the last revelation. "Those where the worst times of all. Once he almost drowned me!"

"What the he..." she exclaimed, her face a mask of shock and wrath. "I...I don't know what to say!"

"There's nothing to say. It's over now. They can't hurt me anymore."

"But..." she was stammering, I could see her eyes welling with tears. "The laws of the Galactic Republic are still valid...torture is still banned! I hoped beyond hope that Obi-Wan's feelings about what happened to you were wrong but...now that you confirm it..." she was crying now. And I hated seeing her crying. I just hated it.

"Come on..." I slipped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her towards me, holding her tightly. "It's over now. I'm fine! They didn't cause me any permanent damage. I'm still a whole one! Well, almost whole!"

I managed to tear a smile from her. "I still can't believe it. You've been so far away for so long I had almost forgot how it felt to be with you. It's even better than before...well, before the Empire."

"This time we don't have to hide." I replied. "And after so much time, believe me, I had almost forgot how it felt too." I paused for a moment and kissed her forehead. "I love you so much..."

She snuggled closer and sighed contently. "I love you too. Always have and always will." she whispered softly. "And after you escaped?" she asked.

"Well, first of all I ran to the Jedi Temple, and there I discovered about the twins and that I had to go to your parents if I wanted to know something about you." I replied. "And that's where I got caught into an explosion and a random shrapnel stuck in my side, here..." I pointed the long scar on my right side, just underneath the ribcage. "I managed to reach your parents' house and there they helped me."

"Yes, Sola told me something about that when I left the twins there, three days ago."

I nodded and went on. "When I recovered, and it took me quite some time, considering that Janu had to perform an emergency surgery in your own bedroom, Darrick came and enrolled me in the Alliance with a fake ID. I was sent to Dxun and there we developed the first functioning prototype of the X-Wing. And that's where I started getting depressed."

"Depressed?" she asked looking up at me.

I nodded. "Yep, depressed. I don't know why but when I was in prison I was a lot more able to stand the distance between us but...when I was out, I had more time to think about you and the twins and...well, yep, I was incredibly depressed. I was so down that when Incom accepted our prototype and started the first line of production we had a small party and I got drunk. I was completely smashed, the other guys had to drag me to the restroom because I was about to throw up. It wasn't a great night I have to say."

"Anakin Skywalker!" she said in fake shock. "I didn't really think you were the kind of man that drowns sorrows in alcohol!"

"I'm not!" I exclaimed. "It was a special occasion, and a one time only! Really, I felt so bad that next time I had something alcoholic at hand I barely drank half of it!" I replied. "Anyway, a couple of days after that we were moved to Dantooine for the piloting course. There I met Aleha and Ahsoka, even if she didn't recognize me at first, you know, with longer hair and the long beard and everything." I told her. "Then you know the story."

"I'm sorry Anakin. You had to face all of this alone and...well, I was safe and sound with the twins..."

"That was everything I wanted. That's why I decided it was time to take hold of the situation and do something for you. Anyway...what about you? Obi-Wan didn't tell me much."

"Well...we went to Tatooine at first. We stayed there for about a week, long enough for Obi-Wan to make sure ai was safe, get in touch with Master Yoda then confront Vader on Mustafar and come back. During that week, Beru got to know that in order to hide my pregnancy to everyone I had never been checked my a doctor and almost forced me to get a check up. She called a medic she really trusted and that's when we learned I was expecting twins!" she chuckled. "You can't imagine the shock on Obi-Wan's face. He paled so quick that I thought he had a stroke!"

I shook my head. "I wish I could have seen him, but I guess I would have had the same reaction, only amplified!"

"Knowing you, you probably would have had fainted." she laughed softly. "Anyway, considering my particular situation, we decided there and then that I had to disappear. And that I needed a more competent doctor, just in case anything would go wrong. Then we went to Naboo and with the help of the Queen and some other very trustworthy people we organized a fake funeral. And after that, we remained with my parents." she took a deep breath. "It was only a couple of weeks later than the whole story was revealed by the press. With me apparently dead and you...well, you had been reported executed...everything was out. Fortunately not the pregnancy. My efforts to hide it seemed to prove they were worth it."

"Well, at least that. You did a wonderful job, considering you were one of the most important Senators of the Galaxy!" I replied.

"Well, I had a lot of help from anyone close to me. Anyway, about a month after everything started, the twins decided it was time to come out and see the world. It took some time, almost sixteen hours but everything went fine. It took me all the control I had to though, because I really was about to start curse like the worst bounty hunter of the Galaxy. The main problem was keeping Obi-Wan calm, he really gave a hard time to Darred and my father, he was incredibly nervous. Fortunately everything went fine. A bit long, but fine. Even though I don't think I really want other children, I've had my fix of pain!" she said, and I had the feeling she was really sure about that.

"Was it that painful?" I asked.

She nodded. "Well, I dare to say that it was the most painful thing I ever endured in my life. Therefore, next time, we have to be careful!" she said

"We've always been careful Padmè, and you still got pregnant! When it happens, it happens, there's not so much to do about it!"

"Well, there was a night we weren't that careful actually..." she said, but left the sentence hanging.

She got me curious. "What time?"

"About five months before the Battle of Coruscant. Before you left for the Outer Rim Sieges. On Naboo."

Suddenly I recalled that night. "Oh yeah I definitely remember that! I think I had other things running in my mind that night, other than the risk of getting you pregnant!"

"You definitely had!" she rolled on her stomach and stared at me. "If I remember correctly, you never gave me a moment to breathe!"

"As if I'm the only one to blame! It takes two to make babies, you know that!"

Trying to muffle it so she wouldn't wake up the kids, she laughed wholeheartedly. "I know. I really do know." she ran her hand through her long hair. "I remember something that Sola told me, some years ago. I think it was that day we visited my parents, just before we left for the Lake Region. Just before the war."

"Oh, that day I had the feeling she kept telling you naughty things about me! You looked so embarrassed sometimes!"

"Well, she saw that I was in love with you even before I realized it myself. She has always been more perspicacious than me in matters of boys actually. Anyway, she said that one day or another you would get me into troubles. Into big troubles. In fact, you got me not only one, but two troubling children!"

"I told you, it's not my fault!" I laughed. "At least not only my fault!"

"I'm not blaming you! It's just a matter of biology. You just hit the target!"

Damn, even in that hour, after everything that had happened just a couple of days before...she was just perfect. The most gorgeous woman I had ever seen.

"And tell me, after the twins were born?" I asked, changing subject. "What did you do?"

"Well, we stayed on Naboo for six months, long enough for the kids to be a bit more easy to handle for me, since Obi-Wan was really nervous and somehow awkward around them, and long enough for the mess created by the beginning of the Empire to settle down. Obi-Wan traveled to Alderaan and got in touch with senator Organa, and he helped us. For some time, we traveled around the Galaxy. We stayed on Alderaan under the protection of the Royal family for most of the time, but sometimes Obi-Wan felt it was better to move somewhere remote. Then we came here, or went on Tatooine. Unfortunately, when the new Queen was elected and we discovered she was a more Empire-friendly governor, we had to cut our trips to Naboo, in order to remain as hidden as possible."

I nodded. I had seen how many security guards there were around Theed. "And now? What do you think we should do?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I mean, I had grown accustomed to the idea of being away from you...now I really need to rearrange everything!"

"Just be aware of the fact that I snore and I tend to move a lot while sleeping. And sometimes I have nightmares! And I talk!"

She smiled. "As if I didn't know that already. We've slept together, I remember how much you toss and turn around while you sleep!" she said. "And I guess you know that I am a light sleeper. And that Luke sometimes gets up in the middle of the night and jump in my bed. And when Leia finds it out, she comes too."

"It won't be a problem. But now I really want to know what do you want to do." I repeated. "I mean, about us. Should we go around with our real names, at least, should I do it, considering that I can still use my fake ID if you think it could protect you better."

"Well, I guess that, as long as you are willing to do it, it can be arranged."

"For you and the twins, I would do everything. After all, I used that fake name for almost a year, I can still do it. It won't be a problem." I replied. "Many know that Anakin Skywalker is actually alive and that he joined the Alliance, but not many of them saw me. Or at least, they didn't see me close enough to remind my face. And I can still let my beard grow."

"You know, I always wondered how you'd look look like with a long beard."

"Dakk should have a holo we took one day on Dxun. I can ask him to show it to you."

"That would be nice. Anyway, what's your fake name?" she asked curiously.

"Atton Rosh. Nothing too hard to remember."

"Atton Rosh..." she repeated softly. She seemed to think about it for a moment, "Atton Rosh...well, I guess I can adapt. I prefer your name though."

"Me too but, you know...there's a huge bounty on my head. Being Anakin Skywalker can be tricky in our situation."

She sighed. "Just like being Senator Amidala. I'm quite happy with being Padmè Naberrie now. I'm just a woman now, a mother. And a wife!"

"My wife, if I may add..." I said. "My wonderful, gorgeous incredibly resourceful wife. The only woman I will ever love. Forever and always."

She snuggled closer to me and took a deep breath. "I wish this night would never end." she whispered. "We still have so many things to talk about..."

I moved on of her locks away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. "We can still reprise it this evening. We tuck the kids in their bed and...well, ignite the fireworks!"

"It's just that...I don't know..." she closed her eyes for a moment, then looked up at me. "I just feel perfect now. We're finally together. And this time it's for real. I just don't want the others to interfere with this perfect moment."

She was right. It was perfect. We were perfect. No one could ever hope for a better match. She was my other half, my soulmate. She still is, actually. She made me perfect. With her, I could endure everything. I could confront my worst fears, as long as she was with me. We were just perfect.

"And, by the way..." suddenly her voice became low and warm. "We can still ignite the fireworks now..."

I closed my eyes as she brushed her fingers lightly on my chest, slowly dragging the sheet down. She managed to tear a groan of pleasure out of me when she kissed me, slowly, passionately. I could feel her warmth seep through the thin fabric of her nightgown and the covers and it felt incredible, almost scorching.

"What are you doing?" I whispered as her lips trailed down my jaw to my neck. Slowly she straddled me and made herself comfortable.

"I'm making love with my husband..." she purred, a wicked grin on her face. By the Force, I loved when she took control of the situation. "If his leg is up to the task."

"My leg is fine, as long as you don't want to do something crazy!" I replied, trying to play it as cool as I could, as I grazed her leg lightly, slowly moving the fabric of her gown up.

"Good...because I want to use this time as best as I can!"

"Well, I guess we can arrange that!"

She kissed me and, well, let me say that I lost track of time and even the contact with the world around me. And it was sheer luck that at some point I realized there was something different. I felt something just outside the door, through the Force. It was only a moment but I felt someone coming closer.

I had to break the kiss in order to feel it clearly. Panting, I tried to concentrate long enough to understand what was happening.

"Hey Anakin...what's going on?" she asked, worried.

"I don't know...I thought I heard something..." then I realized it. "The twins, they're coming in, now!"

She paled slightly and jumped off of me and threw herself under the covers just in time to disappear before the door opened and Luke and Leia appeared. With a curious look on their sleepy faces.

"What were you doing?" asked Leia rubbing her eyes wearily.

We exchanged an extremely embarrassed look. "Nothing!" we said.

Luke elbowed his sister. "Yeah, nothing...like nothing would wake you up!" he teased her. Or us, I don't know. "Can we come in?" he asked.

Padmè nodded. "Sure..."

I rolled on my side and searched for my boxers through the heap of clothes scattered beside the bed. I quickly donned them under the sheets before they climbed up with us and sneaked under the covers.

"What are you doing awake at this early hour?" I asked.

"Something woke me up." replied Leia. "I couldn't sleep anymore."

"Then I woke up too and we decided to come here." continued Luke.

"And what about knocking?" asked Padmè, a bit annoyed. "I told you it's not polite to burst into a closed room."

"We supposed you were sleeping!" Luke tried to justify himself. "We didn't know you were awake and what you were doing! We didn't want to burst in! We just wanted to stay with our parents!"

I sighed. Fireworks would have to wait. But if it was for them, well, I could have waited forever.


	36. Your Spirit's Alive

**Chapter 36 – Your Spirit's Alive**

About an hour later, we decided it was time to get out of bed and start our day. We were getting ready when we heard someone knocking on the door. Padmè went to open it. It was Ahsoka with a huge box in her arms.

"Good morning!" I heard her voice even through the closed door. "I thought you might want to have your breakfast here..."

"Oh thank you Ahsoka!" replied Padmè cheerfully. "Come in!"

"Thanks."

Finally I managed to wear my trousers and put the splint back on. After that, I quickly buttoned my shirt and managed to be presentable. I grabbed the crutches and joined them in the living room. "Hey Snips! It's good to see you!"

"Good morning Master. How's your leg?" she asked, leaving the box on the table.

"Not too bad!" I lied.

Padmè sighed. "It's giving him a hell of troubles!" she said. "Tonight he barely managed to sleep!"

"I'm sorry to hear that. Have you taken something?"

I nodded. "Yes, but it didn't work as I wanted." I confessed. "I think I'm going to ask for some help after breakfast."

"Good idea. Anyway, Master Kenobi told me to inform you that you're both needed in the commanding center in a couple of hours. And that some of your friends would like to have you for the organization of the funeral, tomorrow."

In that moment, the twins came out of their bedroom fully dressed for the day. When they saw Ahsoka, they sprinted towards her, laughing loudly, and jumped in her arms. Those two were really fond of my friends, that was sure. She promptly caught them and held them up, even if I could see the effort it cost her on her face. "Hey Squids! How are you?" she asked, smiling brightly.

"Fantastic!" They slipped down to the floor.

"Good. Did you take care of your dad?" she asked as they sat at the table.

They nooded. "Yep. Mom had to stay with the officers for some hours yesterday and we took care of him!" said Leia.

"I fear she will have to stay with them for some other time today. Oh, by the way, your Master wants you to join the other younglings for your training right after breakfast. Understood?"

They nodded and opened the box and started taking out our meals. "Then we need to hurry. Obi-Wan hates when we are late!"

"Good kids. Now, I leave you here, I have things to do. We'll see you around here, alright?" Said Ahsoka walking towards the door.

"Thank you again..." Replied Padmè. "We'll send them up for their training as soon as they're ready."

Ahsoka nodded. "Alright. See you!" she opened the door and stepped out. Soon after that, the door closed with a low hiss.

"Now..." started Padmè. "Who's hungry?"

Luke and I raised our hands almost instantly, and I caught Leia slowly shaking her head, just like Padmè.

She chuckled and opened one of the closets in the room, picking cups and plates out of it. "I told you Leia, your brother just eats as much as your father. And still you wouldn't believe me!"

"But mom! Luke eats as much as a starved Colo Claw Fish!" she whined. "And a Claw Fish eats a lot!"

"I know, Leia, but your father can eat as much, if not even more, than a Claw Fish!" replied Padmè playfully.

"Hey, now I'm offended! I don't know what the heck is a Colo Claw Fish, but if I have to be compared to an animal, please...at least do me the honor to compare me to a rancor!" I said as I sat cautiously on a chair near the table. I definitely needed to see a doctor. That leg was killing me.

"Rancor?" asked Padmè. Apparently, I had never told her about that particular specimen of the Dathomir fauna.

I nodded, picking a plate and a cup. "The rancor is a huge reptilian creature from Dathomir, but many crime lords all around the Galaxy keep them as pets. They have huge mouths, fangs sharp enough to cut durasteel...they are hideous, they smell like...well I don't want to think about it...and they eat a lot. A lot more than any other creatures I have ever seen!"

"Alright..." sighed Padmè. "I think I have a new nickname for your father!"

"And for Luke!" added Leia.

We all burst in laughs. That was the first time we were actually together in a familiar context. It was great. It just felt so good! We were sharing opinions, tales...something that I was used to to secretly, when me and Padmè managed to find a spare moment to spend together. Now, we could do it openly. At least for some time. I had already decided that Anakin Skywalker would have gone undercover again, I just needed to figure out everything.

Anyway, soon after breakfast, the kids helped Padmè cleaning up then headed to their training session, leaving us alone. We had some time before we had to go somewhere doing things we would really prefer to avoid but we had been called up, we couldn't just desert the call.

When the dishes were all cleaned and in their closets, I dragged myself to the couch and sat down, propping my leg up on a chair. "Damn it...it's killing me!" I sighed.

Padmè, slightly worried, sat beside me. "Do you want me to call someone?"

I held my breath for a moment, trying to figure out if I could actually manage do drag myself out of that place, walk down that corridor to the lift and get to the infirmary. The bare thought made me sick. I felt my ankle throbbing against the plastic splint, I could actually feel the bones and tissues healing. And it wasn't such a great feeling.

"I don't know...I guess I could get to the infirmary but...can you call and ask if Janu is there?"

She nodded and walked towards her door. There was a comlink there. She pushed a couple of buttons and waited. About thirty seconds later, someone on the other side picked the call up. "Infirmary." said a low, male voice.

"Ehm, is Doctor Janu Eyeriie there?" she asked.

"Yes, he's here. Is he needed somewhere?"

"No, just tell him that there's a patient coming up" she replied. "And he needs help."

"What's the problem?"

"He underwent a reconstruction surgery for a broken leg two days ago. Up until tonight, he felt rather good but earlier this morning he started having troubles. Now he barely can move and even if the leg is immobilized he's still in a lot of pain." she explained.

There was a strange sound from the other side, like someone fumbling with the comlink, as if it was passed from hand to hand. "Padmè is that you?" came the familiar, low voice of our favorite doctor.

"Yes it's me. Can you come down here and check on Anakin? His leg his giving him some troubles." she asked gently.

"I'm coming now. Let the splint loose for a moment before I arrive, understood kid?"

"Sure. We're here waiting!"

He closed the call. Slowly, Padmè walked towards the couch and sat down again. "Come on, let me see!"

She pulled the velcro straps open and let the device a bit loose. The pain seemed to amplify even more, so much it made me cry out in pain. "Does it hurt that much?"

I nodded, biting my lip, trying not to scream. "Yes...it's even worse than when Dooku cut my arm..."

"It's strange, it doesn't look like there's an infection going on...what do you feel?"

I didn't have the time to answer that we heard another knock on the door. Janu was incredibly quick, even though that he wasn't that young anymore.

Padmè opened the door and he briskly stepped in. "So, what's the matter here kid?" he asked, taking a chair from the table and sitting down beside me.

"It feels like someone is pulling my muscles and tendons apart, one by one..." I replied. "It's getting worse by the moment."

He silently took an instrument from his bag and passed it around my injured ankle, his eyes fixated on a small computer screen. His expression didn't look too good. "Mhh..." he murmured. "I don't really like it."

"What's the problem?" asked Padmè for me. She had grabbed my hand and was holding it tightly, trying to comfort me.

"It seems like the tissue re-generator that Dr. Koros had implanted stopped working. That's why it hurts so much." he replied sternly. "I only need to reactivate it and it should get better in an hour or two."

"Will it take long?" I asked. I was on the edge of crying for the pain. It was incredibly intense, and I mean it. I was used to extreme pain but that was so intense, so concentrated in one point that it was unbearable.

"No, I can do it even here. I just need this!" he picked another instrument from his bag and started bustling with it. "It's strange because these things turn off automatically only when they are extremely stressed. You know, sharp movements, bangs and stuff like that. Things that a man with one of these devices implanted shouldn't do. I was wondering what the hell you did tonight to make it stop working!"

Padmè and I exchanged an extremely embarrassed look. "Well...actually..." she started, not really knowing what to say.

He lifted his eyes from his device, looked up at me then at her and shook his head. "I knew I should have kept you in the hospital for another night..." he said, as cold as a stone. Nothing seemed to shock him anymore, at least about us. "I just hope it was worth it and that you kept your delirious promise about making her see the best fireworks of her life!" he said nonchalantly.

I really wanted to be buried six feet under right there and then. I slipped even more on the couch, sagging deep into the pads and covering my face with my hand. "I can't really believe I said that!"

"Oh you did...anesthetics do wonders!" he pushed a button and the device in his hand buzzed for a second. "You were so funny! We had a wonderful conversation about how much you were tired of do-it-yourself jobs..."

At that point, Padmè burst into laughs, so hard she was doubling over. "Anakin, I can't really believe it!"

I just wanted to hide, do disappear into a small cloud of steam. I was probably as red as a Sith's lightsaber. "I don't even remember that..." I mumbled. "By the Force, I really want to die now!"

"For what? For being a healthy thirty years old man? Come on! Everyone has needs, we know it. Do you think that your wife didn't had the same urges?" Now it was Padmè's time to blush. "Come on! I'm a doctor, I know what I'm talking about!" he took a syringe from his bag and a small bottle.

"It was a bit private though..." I whined like a kid. I just felt so awkward!

"Private my ass, Kid. You're married! Sooner or later, someone would have told her. Either me or Master Kenobi..." he stick the needle in the soft cap of the bottle and drew some of the liquid inside.

"Obi-Wan was there?" I almost yelled, in shock.

He nodded and roughly grabbed my arm. "Oh yes." he rolled up the sleeve of my shirt and prepared me for the shot. "And he was laughing his ass off. I think I had never seen him laughing so wholeheartedly. You're a funny guy Anakin, that's sure!"

"I wish I could be that funny without being delirious or making a fool of myself!" I sighed. He stuck the needle quickly in my vein and shot the painkiller straight in my system.

"You'll learn. Now, rest that leg as much as you can. No sex for today and not even tonight, if it implies that you have to do most of the job. Therefore, Padmè, in case you decide you can't wait for your complete recovery, you're in charge!"

If there's something I hate about doctors is how they talk about things like that so easily! What the heck! And thank the Force we weren't in the infirmary, with other people around us! I would probably explode at that point!

"Alright. I guess it won't be a problem." she replied softly, trying to hide her own embarrassment. Damn, I swear on everything I consider sacred in my life, that was the most embarrassing moment of my whole life. I wanted to disappear and hide anywhere, but far from that place. I felt like a teenager caught with his girlfriend. Crap!

"At least I can risk and trust you. Be careful now Anakin. I swear that if you call me again because that implant turned off before its work is done, I'm gonna keep you strapped to your bed for a week, until your leg is completely healed. Without her! And I'm not joking! Don't push your luck again!" he said, sternly.

I sighed. "Alright. I swear this time I'll take it easy."

He took a deep breath. "We'll see. After this stunt, you'll need to use the crutches for a couple of days more, but I trust you can hold on and take a long vacation after all of this is over!" he said packing his things and preparing to leave.

"That's sure..." interjected Padmè. "Next week it's the twins' eight birthday, and I hoped we could celebrate it with my parents, on Naboo. We can take a break from everything, at least for a week, maybe ten days."

He nodded. "Good. No, great actually! With all the stress he has accumulated during the years, that's what he needs."

"Yep, I do." I replied. "Man...I already feel better!"

He chuckled as he closed his bag. "With that dose of such a strong painkiller? I was wondering when you would start getting delirious again!" he joked. "Now Kid, take it easy for a couple of hours. Lay down and let the implant start working on your leg again, then you can start walking around and help the others with the commemoration."

"How do you know I wanted to help them?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "You know, when you were in the bacta bath, the second time, I had the chance to speak to your Master for some time. And he told me about your friends. When I heard they were going to hold a commemoration for those pilots and soldiers that died, I was sure you were going to help!" he said. "Now, I have to go. I can't be gone from the infirmary for too long. Remember what you promised Kid! Have a nice day!" then he exited.

Padmè stood up and walked around me, kneeling beside the couch. "Seems like this time we really must follow the doctor's prescriptions." she said while carefully closing the straps of the splint around my leg.

"Yes we do. Well, actually, I'm the one who needs to follow the orders. You can do whatever you want!" I replied. That drug was really doing wonders. The only problem was the fact that I was about to fall asleep again... I yawned for a moment before taking a deep breath and sag on the couch even more. "I feel like I need ten more hours of sleep."

She tugged the leg of my trousers down over the splint. "Maybe we could just call ourselves out of every meeting or whatever so you can rest. I don't think they'll be angry." she said.

"Just give me a couple of hours and I should be back on track, don't worry. You can go if you need to."

"My husband comes first. They won't see me if I'm not sure you're OK. Or at least good enough to stand up straight and not crawling around in pain, trying to hold on enough to look brave and bold." she joked. "Come on, let's get you to bed before you fall asleep here."

She fetched the crutches and helped me to my feet. I was wobbling a bit, but I managed to arrive to the bed and sit down almost straight. That drug was awesome! My leg didn't hurt anymore! Finally!

She pushed me down and threw the covers over me, tucking me in just like she had done the night before with the twins. "Sleep now. I'm going to find Captain Antilles and ask if I need to be somewhere today. I'll check on you in two hours alright?"

I nodded weakly. "Alright." I mumbled. I was slipping into sleepiness really fast. The last thing I remember was her hand gently caressing my cheek and forehead. Then I have two hours of black out. I woke up two hours later, feeling definitely better. Slowly, I stood up, this time a lot more steady and slowly walked out of the bedroom just in time to catch Padmè walking in. She was surprised to see me up and walking, considering the condition she had left me in.

Well, I felt really better, and it wasn't midday yet, so I still had the chance to be helpful.

I left Padmè in the main commanding room, then I headed straight to the first level, were they were organizing everything. When I walked in, everyone in there stopped and looked at me for a moment. There was a moment of awkward silence before most of them went back to their job. I saw Dakk stepping down a ladder and walking towards me, his face rigid but still he tried to force a smile.

"Hey, we thought you would have missed this." he said, lowly.

I shook my head. "I wouldn't have missed this for anything in the galaxy. I owe them. I just down know how I can help, if I move too much, this leg starts giving me hell"

"Well, you can start working on a speech for them. At least for the pilots. You're the most adapt, I think. You know, being Anakin Skywalker and everything..." he said as we slowly walked towards the end of the huge room.

I thought about that for a moment. "Dakk...I would really love to but...I think Anakin Skywalker should go into hiding again and Atton Rosh should take his place. You know, down on that base...I had to confront Vader. Now that they know that I am in the Alliance, I fear they will quadruplicate their efforts to find and destroy us."

He nodded. "You're right. That means, no speech, if I understood." he replied,

"I fear so. From this moment on, Anakin Skywalker is officially dead. Or at least, he will be in some hours."

"Too bad for him. Now, let's get down to business. I fear that with that leg you won't be that helpful. You know, we need to move stuff here and there and..."

I stopped him and showed how I could still move things, heavy things, around. Those who were moving a sort of makeshift podium suddenly found their hands empty as I applied a small push with the Force and placed it where another guy was showing them.

They exchanged some stunned looks as they didn't understand what the heck had just happened. Dakk smiled, wickedly. "Alright. You are indeed helpful. I guess you agree with me that you can be Anakin Skywalker for another day!"

I nodded. "Yes. At least until midnight, I'm Anakin Skywalker. From tomorrow on, I'm Atton Rosh. Speaking of which...do you remember that holo we took some time ago, back on Dxun, after we had finished the prototype?"

He nodded. "Sure I do. I should have it in my room. Why do you ask?"

"It's Padmè...I told her that when I was undercover I used to keep my beard long and she wanted to see how I looked like."

"Sure. Just come with me when we're done here and I'll give it to you." she said. "But...I really hope you did something more than talking last night!" he whispered, with a smart smile on his face.

I sighed. "Yes, don't worry. In fact, that's part of the reason I'm late here." he made a strange face. "Oh come on!" I said, a bit annoyed. "It's not what you think! I had a problem with my leg and I had to be checked on. Don't worry, now I'm fine."

We spent the rest of the morning and the afternoon trying to have everything ready for the next day. It took quite some time, because we had to arrange the space to contain all of those who wanted to be there. We had to move much of the portable chairs that were scattered all over the base in there, we stole some benches from the refectory...stuff like that. We wanted everything to be perfect, because all of us had lost friends. And not just the pilots. The twenty pilots that had died were just a fraction of the losses of that day. Many soldiers of the land squadrons had perished under the thick Imperial fire. The commemoration was in memory of everyone, not only the pilots.

It was late afternoon when we received news that Senator Organa and Senator Mothma were en route to join us and be present next morning. It was an honor after all, but I really wished I could meet them in happier circumstance but, you know, you can't always get what you wanted.

Later, just after a quick dinner and the last finishing touches here and there, we decided it was enough and we could go away. At some point Ahsoka had come and joined us. She had come straight from the training level and while we ate something before going back to work, she told me that the twins were still down there with the younglings and where having a good time with the others and that she thought they would really benefit from a more variable training with the other kids. And I really agreed with her. I would have talked about it with Obi-Wan once I managed to get in touch with him. He had disappeared.

Anyway, when I managed to return to our apartment, I found Padmè waiting for me while she read something from a datapad. When she heard the door open, she looked up and smiled when I stepped in. "Hey, I though they had taken you to some forsaken planet!"

I smiled. "No, we just wanted everything to be perfect for tomorrow." I slowly walked inside. "The twins?"

"In their room. Homework time!" she said, raising her hand and showing me the datapad. "They might be training to be Jedi Knights, but I want them to be educated. At least the basics."

"Great. If they start now, they won't have to work as hard as I did..." I moved a chair closer to the couch and sat down next to her, propping my leg up on the chair. "I had to catch up with the others, I just knew how to read and write and do some basic maths. Nothing more."

"Exactly. So, they do their normal training during the day, but after dinner, it's all for their studies. You know, they are actually smart and fast learners. Leia a bit more than Luke."

"I don't know why but I had the feeling she was the studious one! I fear Luke is more like me. The action type!"

She nodded. "Yes, exactly. That kid has so much energy...he reminds me of you, when we met."

"I wish I could say the same but I guess I'll have to wait six more years." I replied as she leaned on me and laid her head on my shoulder.

"Well, you can just ask my parents but...except for the Jedi training, I was pretty much like her. Calm, somehow ahead of the kids of the same age. But she's a bit tougher than me. I guess she has taken this from your side."

I took a deep breath and sighed. "She's going to be a great Jedi. But I have the feeling she will follow your path, at some point."

"How do you know?"

"It's not that I know it...it's a feeling. I mean, right now, the Order is not ruling anymore. There's no Council, those Jedi that survived had time to think about what happened. And all the Jedi I talked to agree with me that the Order needs to be reformed. New rules, new approaches to life and feelings. At least that's what I think. Just look at us, or Aleha and Hilean."

"And you think Obi-Wan will let her choose?"

"He will. Otherwise, he'll have to deal with me!"

A couple of hours later We were still talking about various stuff, such as my new change of identity that had become official about three hours before when the kids emerged from their bedroom clutching their pajamas and heading to the bathroom. They were dragging their feet and I could see they were walking with their eyes half closed. Poor things, they were exhausted. A long training day then three full hours of study. I couldn't say I did envy them. They came out of the bathroom about five minutes later with their clothes neatly folded. They stopped in front of their door and turned towards us.

"We're going to sleep." declared Leia trying to hide a deep yawn.

"Good. I'm coming!" replied Padmè standing up. "Want to join us?" she asked me.

"Sure." I stood up and followed them.

The kids jumped on their beds and sneaked under the thick covers. "Now kids, sleep well, alright?" she knelt beside their beds and tucked them in then she placed a kiss on their foreheads. "But if tonight you decide it's time to jump in our beds, remember that we don't mind, but knock before you burst in! Ok?"

"Yes mom." murmured Luke. "Goodnight!"

"Goodnight kids."

She closed the door and leaned against it for a moment. "I guess it's time even for us." she said.

I nodded. "You're definitely right. I'm exhausted."

We headed to our bedroom. "How's your leg?"

"Not too bad. It hurts, but it's bearable. Don't worry. I'll be fine for today."

It's not necessary to say that night we obeyed to the doctor's prescription and we had a long night of sleep. Fortunately, I have to say. I had foolishly thought I could just start moving around like my leg was fully healed but I was wrong, and that morning had scared me. I thought I had gone through the worst things of the Galaxy, but that morning, I really thought something could go horribly wrong with my leg and that I could lose it. Fortunately, everything went for the best, but both Padmè and I preferred to lay down and keep it quiet for at least a couple of days more. We could endure that after all.

Next morning, when we woke up, we suddenly felt the heavy shroud of death hanging on us. That was a sad day. If the last couple of days had been joyous and cheerful, even though there were moments of deep sadness, but that day...it was the day we commemorated those who had lost their lives for something greater then their own existence.

Silently, we got dressed then joined the others for breakfast. Even the kids were silent that day. Soon after breakfast, we all gathered in the area we had prepared the day before. The room was already rather full and there was a growing queue outside that waited to enter. We spotted Darrick, Aleha, Ahsoka and Obi-Wan in a corner of the room, slightly far away from the crowd.

"How do you feel today?" asked Obi-Wan when we arrived. "I heard you had to call Janu yesterday."

"Not too bad. I guess I learned the lesson and I will take it easy until I'm healed." I replied.

"Looks like finally you turned into a sensible man after all!" he smiled briefly. "Come, sit down. You need rest."

A couple of minutes later the room was full and finally Senators Mothma and Organa made their appearance. They walked slowly to the small podium we had built and placed on the far end of the room and as they arrived there, the crowd fell silent and waited for them to speak.

They talked to each other for a moment, I don't know what they said but I saw Organa nodding then he approached the small podium. He stepped on it and placed his hands on the edge, leaning forward.

"Ladies and gentlemen...I'm deeply saddened by the woeful occasion we meet. I really hoped we could meet in much more happier circumstances but war is war and even if I am one of the most relentless supporter of peace and diplomacy, I have to line up with those who support violent revolutions. I must support this war now, because everything I believed in was stolen from me, as it was from you." he paused for a moment. "Two days ago we took our first step in what will become a civil war and...unfortunately, some of us lost their lives."

I clutched the handlers of the crutches and tried to hold back my anger. I still felt incredibly angry about that.

"Today we're here to celebrate their memory. Their names will be forever in our hearts. Unfortunately I had never met them and I'm not incline to talk about people I have never met in my life so, I guess I'll leave room to those who actually knew them."

At that point, Ahsoka stepped forward and headed towards the podium. She shook hands with Bail then stepped up.

"Well...I guess it's up to me." she started. "Unfortunately, I had trained many of those who perished during the space battle and...well, I would lie if I told you that I knew them personally because it's not true. I knew some of them. Those I knew were good men. Good pilots. We went through some intense weeks and an equally intense day. And when I heard that they had died during the attack well, I was...devastated. I had taught them the basics of flying and then how to fight and then they...well, they're not here anymore." she paused for a moment, glancing down. "But if there's something I learned through the years, and most of all eight years ago, is that those who die, those who reunite with the Force, as us Jedi Knights are used to say, they never actually die. Their spirits stay alive forever. They're reunited with their loved ones and they guide us in their own way."

I felt the tears stinging behind my eyelids. Those were words I had heard so many times before but not until that day I knew they were true. I guess that during the years I had finally learned how to let go. She was such a wise woman...and when people told me I had become a wise man too, I couldn't stop thinking how wise Ahsoka had always been.

I felt Padmè tightening her hold on my arm. I turned my head and saw Padmè smiling at me. She understood how I felt, I knew it. She leaned her head on my shoulder and sighed. I looked down and I saw Luke and Leia silently standing side by side, their hands behind their back, listening carefully to Ahsoka's speech.

"I would love to reassure you that those men will never be forgotten, that they will live forever in our hearts, and that's true, some of you will never forget them, others will, but they're not to be blamed. You remember who you love after all. And I know a man that really loved three of the men who died. He lived with them for about a year, they built the X-Wing together and...well, he knew them. I know though that he was truly saddened by what happened and, well...many years ago, this man told me that you need a heart as strong as a hammer to be a pilot. He told me that you really need the guts to be up there in open space with blasters flying around your head and only your skills and an astrodroid to help you." he paused again, looked at me for a moment then smiled. "Well, the heart of the matter is that all those who died, three days ago, both on the planet and in the space battle, they showed us that they really had the guts to do it. That their hearts where hammers. And I think that the best way to honor them is turning our hearts into hammers, into pounding hammerhearts, and keep fighting for what we believe is right. For the restoration of the Republic. For the destruction of the Sith, for peace and for those those we love!"

After that, a thunderous applause echoed in the room. That was the best speech I had ever heard. It really moved me and everyone in the room.

"Your former Padawan surely has a way with words!" said Obi-Wan behind me.

"That's for sure!" I replied wiping away the tears from my eyes.

For the rest of the day, my family, Obi-Wan, the Kohrs, Ahsoka, Dakk and Jagg stayed together and we shared memories and tales altogether. The corner of the refectory we had established as our little living room soon turned into a sort of assembly, there was a little crowd around us. About an hour before lunch, I stood up and walked away from the crowd. I needed to do something.

I walked away from the refectory and headed towards the commanding room. I needed a computer for what I had to do.

I sat at one of the terminals and logged in. I looked for my file, my real file, the one under Anakin Skywalker. I had decided that Anakin Skywalker had to die. This time, for good.

I was modifying the data when I heard the door behind me open. I turned and saw Padmè standing there, looking at me. "So, you're decided?" she asked.

I nodded. "Yes. As soon as I'm done with this, Anakin Skywalker will be dead."

She sat down beside me. "Alright. But if my husband has to die, we need to do it together."

I smiled as I typed. "Now that we can do it..."

A minute later, Anakin Skywalker was dead. And I was again Atton Rosh.

This time it didn't feel odd or anything. It just felt safer, for me and for my family.

"So..." I started leaning back on the chair. "What are we going to do now?" I asked.

"Well...I had a couple of ideas." she replied. "You know, next week is the twins' birthday and I really wanted to spend some time with my parents. What do you think?"

I nodded. "It's perfect!"

About an hour later, we had packed our things and were heading to Naboo. It was time for a long vacation!


	37. Be My Hero

**Chapter 37 – Be My Hero**

We were packing our things when Obi-Wan arrived. "I heard you're about to leave."

"Yes!" replied Padmè. "I thought we could use some time to relax, after everything we went through."

He nodded. "Of course. Both of you need some time off. Where are you going?"

"Naboo. We're going to spend some time with my family for the twins' birthday. Do you want to come with us?"

He shook his head. "No Padmè, but thanks for the invite. You need time alone as a family and I'd be an intruder. And that's a role that doesn't suit me well. Not to mention that Aleha needs help with the younglings. Get some rest. Spend some time together. We're going to catch up later."

"Are you sure Master?" I asked as I pushed the last of my piece of clothing in my bag. "We don't mind if you come!"

He shook his head again. "Again, I'm flattered, but no. I'd love to, but this is your vacation, not mine. I stole your husband too many times in the past, I'm not going to do it again."

"What about our training?" asked Leia from her room.

"Don't worry Leia. We can reprise it when you get back here. There's no need to keep it up even while you're on Naboo. You won't stay away for too long I hope."

"A week, maybe two tops." replied Padmè. "If it's too long, we can come back earlier."

"Don't worry. You can stay even longer if your parents will host you. And I think they will keep you there as long as you wish." he said. "Go, have the best vacation ever and return here rested and relaxed. You both deserve it."

"Thank you Master." I replied, hugging him for a moment. "Thank you, really."

"No need. I told you, you deserve it. You've been through hell, both of you, in different ways. Now, it's time to get some heaven. Now, go away. I don't want to see you for at least a month. Understood?"

Padmè and I exchanged a look. "Yes Master!" we said both, smiling.

He smiled too. "Good. Just make sure the twins meditate for at least an hour in the morning. That's everything I ask of you."

"Sure. It won't be a problem." I answered. "We can do it together. Oh, by the way...did you know that Ryoo is Force sensitive?"

Padmè looked up at me with a strange face. "She isn't!"

"Oh, she is! We had the chance to talk for some time and she actually can feel the Force. I don't know if she's enough sensitive to be trained, and I doubt it, but at least she can feel it flow. I was amazed myself"

"Did you tell Sola?" she asked.

I nodded. "Sure. And she wasn't that happy, I have to say. And to be completely honest, considering what happened, I'm happy she wasn't tracked when she was a child."

"With the wisdom of hindsight, yes, I'm happy too." replied Obi-Wan. "Come on, go now. There's a ship waiting for you. Just, do me a favor: take good care of that leg! I don't want to hear that you called Janu again, alright?"

I ran my hand on my face, rather embarrassed. "Yes Master. It will be done."

We took off not half an hour later, after we had paid a short visit to Aleha, Darrick and Ahsoka. They all wished us the best time, even though I saw a shadow in Aleha's eyes. She missed Jax, I was damn sure about that. In that moment, I swore to myself that one day, she would have been happy, as happy as I was, even if I had to chase Jax all around the galaxy.

Once we were outside the atmosphere I made the calculation of the route to Naboo and made the jump to lightspeed, then left the ship in Artoo's hands, and he was incredibly happy to oblige. If a droid can be happy. And I really think that some of them, during the years, develop a personality and feelings. At least Artoo.

Anyway, we spent part of the six hours long trip just talking. I still had to keep my leg as still as possible so I was forced to lay down in one of the bunks of the crew quarters, but this time I was a little more active and not as sleepy as when we were going to Dantooine a couple of days before.

We talked a lot, most of all Padmè and I spent our time listening to Luke and Leia as they shared with me more aspects of their training and their still short life. They were exaggerating things, I was sure, but it was nice to hold them as they talked. They actually spoke to each other, teasing the other one sometimes wickedly. Leia kept teasing Luke about his clumsiness and his innate ability to get into troubles and Luke did the same about her tendency to remain passive when taunted and always trying to resolve things talking and not acting.

From that moment on, I was damn sure about where my DNA had landed.

After a quick lunch, we resumed our talk but after about an hour the kids became sleepy and it didn't take long before they crawled beside me on the bunk and fell asleep there, pinning me down. I couldn't move even if I wanted. Padmè was sitting in another bunk in front of me and was doubling over with laughs. I was stuck there and she was laughing!

But after a couple of moments of disbelief I started laughing myself, trying not to wake them up.

"Don't worry, they'll wake in an hour, maybe less." she said softly.

"Are you sure?"

She nodded. "Sure. If they sleep in the afternoon, they don't sleep more than an hour. Even when they were babies...they never slept much during the day, which meant they slept all night long!"

"Were they this troubling when they were younger?" I asked.

She chuckled. "Troubling? I guess that's not the right word. When they were newborns, well, it was easy to deal with them. They slept, nursed and grew up, nothing more. They were quiet kids, sometimes Leia had a colic but nothing too much. When they started crawling, it was a hell of a hard time. Not to mention when the started walking! Luke needed a month more than Leia, but Mom told me it's normal and that boys usually need some more time to start walking." she knelt beside the bunk and gently caressed Leia's face while she slept. "They were typhoons. Tiny typhoons with a strong connection with the Force. I had a rather hard time taking care of them. When they were three years old, Obi-Wan started their training and they calmed down a little. Still they're a little troubling from time to time, especially when they decide it's time to do something foolish, like three years ago, when Luke broke his arm."

"Yeah, Janu mentioned it." I replied. "I really wish I could turn back time and be there with you."

She sighed and ran her finghers through her hair. "You know, sometimes I really felt abandoned and I blamed you for everything that was going on. I had to blame someone, at least Obi-Wan told me so. I was frustrated, I had to take care of them all alone...I had to vent it out on someone. But in the end I felt like a wreck because I knew that you resigned yourself to the Emperor in order to save us. I really missed you."

"I know Padmè. And don't worry. I really was sure you would be incredibly mad at me when we would have met. I thought you would scream at me, maybe even hit me, I don't know...I was sure you really thought I had abandoned you."

She shook her head. "No, I never thought you abandoned me. They were just moments, moments I cursed at you under my breath for not being there but, nothing more. I knew you did it for us."

"I think I did it even for myself. I learned many things during these years and I think this made me a better man."

"You're not angry anymore. I could feel it, even if I'm not Force sensitive." she said. "You're still my Anakin, just a better version of yourself."

It was so good hearing those words from her...

As predicted, the twins woke up fifty minutes later. They were a bit sleepy, but they started talking again as soon as they had recovered. I couldn't believe it. They were not even eight years old and they had so much to tell me! I felt really special in that very moment.

It was mid afternoon when the navicomputer beeped and signaled we were coming closer to Naboo. Artoo took care of the ship, jumped out of lightspeed and slowly took care of the landing procedures. I offered to take over, but he said he was having so much fun that if I agreed he would have liked to bring the ship down on the planet. I admit I have a soft spot for that barrel, I couldn't tell him no. I loved that droid too much to take all the fun from him.

He did an amazing job. When we landed in a small spaceport just outside Theed, we barely noticed we had touched the ground. He rolled in the crew quarters and announced we had just landed with a cheerful sequence of beeps and that ha had already called Padmè's parents so they could pick us up.

When I asked him if he had taken care of the docking bureaucracy, he beeped something that sounded like "Do you think I've been assembled yesterday? Of course I did!" then rolled towards the entrance ramp in the back of the ship, still chirping happily.

His happiness was contagious. As we gathered our things, we heard the entrance ramp opening and the sounds of the little spaceport filtered inside the ship. Usual noises, machinery working and moving around, voices of workers and other ships crews talking loudly to cover the noises of engines. Nothing too different from any other spaceport in the Galaxy after all.

The only difference that day was sound of heavy measured steps that climbed on the ramp as soon as it had opened completely. I was hoisting my backpack on my shoulders and retrieving my crutches when I heard the kids screaming. "Grampa!"

I turned around and saw them running towards the tall, large figure of my father-in-law standing on the threshold of the crew compartment, as he knelt and opened his arms to welcome his grandchildren with a beaming smile on his face as he hugged them. "Hey, what a welcome! You've been here just a couple of days ago!"

"It's still good to be here!" replied Leia kissing his cheek.

"And it's good to have you here!" he said. "How was the trip?"

"They slept for half of it actually!" interjected Padmè as we approached the door. "For the rest of it, they talked!"

He shook his head. "Well, considering who their mother is, I'm sure they are quite loquacious."

"Yes, they are. In less than two days they filled me in with their whole life!" I said.

"By the Gods Anakin, what happened?" he asked noticing the crutches and the splint. "You left you were barely healed and you return on crutches?" he joked loudly shaking my hand.

"I'm a walking disaster Sir." I replied.

"I hope it will heal fast because Jobal's been preparing something as huge as your condition allows for the twins. But enough talking. Come on, let's get home!"

It took about half an hour to reach their residence, and while driving, Ruwee wanted to know everything that happened during those days between the battle and our return. He had been out when Padmè had rushed to the planet to retrieve the kids and he wanted to hear everything. The Holonet didn't give much space to the battle, calling it a "malfunction of the Imperial Shipyard that caused many damages to the ships in construction and to the construction site too." It was a nice cover, considering that there were no other ships to testify otherwise so, as far as the rest of the population was concerned, that wasn't the beginning of a war, it was an accident.

It wasn't bad after all. Our job would have been easier if the actions of the Alliance managed not to gain too much media attention. I think that part of the downfall of the Republic was partially to blame on the media coverage of the Holonet.

Anyway, as soon as the speeder entered in the courtyard we were greeted by the amazing perfume of the blossoming flowers of the huge garden. It was early summer on Naboo, it was warm but not too hot to be annoying, the late afternoon sun bathed the scene with that special light that made everything shine and sparkle. I had been there only twice in my life but I had learned to love that place. Somehow, it gave me the same feeling of home I had anywhere my mother was when I was a kid, still it wasn't Tatooine. In fact, it was the exact contrary. I had never been there during the winter season but I had the feeling that place was as magical as in summer.

And about being home, as soon as Ruwee parked the speeder, Sola, Ryoo and Pooja came out of the backdoor and ran towards us. It was a fest of hugs and laughs, the twins were ecstatic to be there again after they had spent two years so far away from their family, not to mention Jobal was on the verge of tears when she saw me, stumbling with my crutches but alive. Apparently, everything Padmè had said about me when she had arrived there was the fact that I was badly hurt and that I had to undergo a delicate surgery. She had forgot to say that most of my injuries, though bad and life-threatening, had already been stabilized by the time she had left the hospital ship.

Once I had set foot in the kitchen she lay the tool in her hand and launched towards me, hugging me tightly.

"My Gods you're alive!"

"Ehm..." I felt incredibly awkward. "I'm fine, don't worry. Just a bad case of broken bones!" I replied. I looked at Padmè and she sighed.

"Mom, I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you he was already fine when I left to come here. I'm sorry if you were worried." said Padmè heading towards the corridor with her bags in her hands. "Can you give us a moment to settle down?"

"Sure Padmè. We prepared you bedroom and the guest room is ready for Luke and Leia. Take your time, we'll catch up later." said Sola pushing her out of the kitchen. "Now that Mom knows Anakin's alright, she's fine herself. Go and settle down. We'll wait here."

Padmè hugged her sister tightly for a moment. "Thank you. We'll be down in a minute." she called the twins. "Come on kids, let's get your bags in your room then you can join your cousins. Alright?"

They cheerfully obeyed and ran towards the guest room. Slowly I managed to climb up the stairs and entered in Padmè's room, the same room that had been my own one for a month, about a year before. Except for the bedclothes, nothing had changed.

I propped one of the crutches on the wall and put my backpack down on the floor. "Damn, can you believe it that one year ago when I was wounded it took me nearly five minutes to climb up the stairs?" I said.

She looked up from her bag with an inquisitive stare. "Five minutes?"

I nodded. "Yes. The wound was wide enough so I had problems walking. It was really painful and for the first week after I woke from the coma I really needed five minutes to get up and down." I answered. "Do you mind if I change and wear something more comfortable?"

"Sure. I was about to do the same!"

Obi-Wan had borrowed me one of his Jedi tunics but it felt a bit too tight for me. He was a bit shorter than me and his trousers really felt tight, most of all around the plastic splint. I needed something that fit me and I didn't care if they were civil clothes. I had grown accustomed to wear simple pants and a shirt, it felt good not to have so many layers of clothing. And I had a nice pair of pants loose enough so I could roll the left leg above the splint and basically feel a little more comfortable.

Fishing in my backpack I found a black t-shirt and wore it. With the warm weather outside, it was more than suitable, even if it had a couple of grease stains here and there. It was one of the t-shirts I used during warm days on Dxun. When I was ready, I glanced down at my lightsaber laying on the bed. I thought about taking it with me, hiding it in my pocket but in the end I decided to leave it there, buried under the rest of the clothes in my sack. That night I just wanted to be a father, not a Jedi.

But let's move on. As you might have guessed, that night was a special occasion indeed. It wasn't the twins' birthday yet but it was the first time we were all reunited as a family. Jobal cooked enough stuff to feed the whole Red Squadron and part of the Blue one too. Soon after dinner, once the dining room and the kitchen had been cleaned, the kids went out in the garden to play and left us adults in the veranda, enjoying the cool breeze of the evening and talking.

It was a quiet and happy occasion indeed. We can say it the sort of talk that I should have had eleven years before, long before I asked Padmè to marry me. It's not that her parents didn't know me. After all I had spent a month with them, they had come to know me rather well, but that time they were more concerned about my health and my recovery than my relationship with their daughter. This time we were sharing some more details, exchanging anecdotes, such as what had really happened on Geonosis, the circumstances of our wedding ceremony, what happened during the battle, stuff like that.

They all listened eagerly as we told them about the aspects of out meeting in the cell block of the base and both Jobal and Sola were rather upset when Padmè told them the real extent of my injuries and how I had sacrificed myself again in order to save her from the blast wave. But most of all they were shocked by the idea that we had both faced Vader and survived, when it had been reported that no one had ever survived an encounter with Vader except Obi-Wan.

"But how did he manage to survive?" asked Darred at some point. "You said you damaged his life support suit then he fell from the wall and then the base was bombed!" he couldn't believe it. Well, it was understandable in the end.

"I don't really know." I replied. "Given what kind of injuries he sustained on Mustafar, I guess this wasn't even a fraction of what happened to him that day. He's stronger than anyone I've ever met and his will to live and survive is probably stronger than him. Or maybe it's just the Dark Side, it keeps him up and running like a battery."

"It's incredible." said Ruwee pouring another glass of wine for himself and his wife. "All of this happened just for the will of two men."

"One man sir." I interjected. "Only one. Sidious is behind everything, not Vader. He's just a pawn in his hand, he doesn't have any powers except the fact that he's the Emperor strong and scary arm. He's nothing more than that."

"Well, he's surely really scary." said Sola. "I mean...that mask is creepy."

"And you haven't seen him in person!" replied Padmè. "Dad is tall, and Anakin is not a short man too, but that man is a mountain!"

"When he came to the prison he really scared me to death!" I said without thinking, my eyes fixated on an undefined spot in the garden.

"Excuse me?" asked Jobal, frowning. I had never told them about Vader's visit. They knew I had been tortured, but they didn't know about Vader.

"He came to visit me, from time to time. Not too often fortunately. But when it happened, it was really scary."

They fell silent for a minute. They were worried about me, I knew that, but there was no need, at least not now. I mean, I was fine, except for that minor inconvenience of my leg but that was nothing in the end!

"Hey, come on! It's nothing! I mean, it's past!" I said cheerfully. "I'm not traumatized!"

A couple of hours later it was time to get to bed. The kids were tired both from the trip and for the afternoon and the evening and I had to admit I was a bit tired too. I was still recovering after all! This time, getting upstairs took lesser time and I managed to get up there without breathing heavily. I was getting ready when I heard someone knocking on the door. It was Sola, she wanted to talk to her sister for a moment.

Padmè followed her outside her room and closed the door, but I could still hear them.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

I heard Padmè giggle a bit. "Now that I finally have my husband back with me and he's safe and sound? How do you think I feel?"

"I would be ecstatic to say the least and I dare to say you're a stage above the ecstatic one!" she replied. "Anyway...remember that our rooms share a wall, please, try not to make too much noise!"

I smiled, thinking about how embarrassed Padmè would have been in that moment. But she surprised me by bursting into soft laughs. Probably she wasn't as embarrassed with her sister. Well, it was logical after all.

"Don't worry Sola. We can be quiet if we want!" she answered. "And until his leg is healed, I fear we won't do much, considering what happened yesterday."

"What did you do?" asked Sola, teasing her.

"Nothing, it's just that Anakin has an orthopedic implant in his leg that's rebuilding his damaged bones. Too bad that thing switched off because we've been a little...let's say..." paused for a second trying to find the words.

"Rough Padmè!" I said from inside the room. "We've been a little too rough!"

She laughed again. "Thanks Anakin. Anyway, that thing switched off and it was really painful for him. It's a rather sensible device therefore, we're going to wait until he's fully healed."

"Which means?"

"Five days. Six if we want to be completely sure."

Sola sighed loudly. "You have the patience of a saint, little sister. I don't know what I would have done in your situation."

"Same things I did. You love Darred too much! Come on, go to your husband and I go to mine. It's getting late here. Goodnight!"

"Goodnight little sister. See you tomorrow!"

Next day consisted in total relax. Padmè's family didn't want us to move a finger as long as I was convalescent. After a rather rich breakfast, while Padmè helped in the kitchen, I took the twins out for their meditation training. We looked for a quiet spot in the garden and settled for a nice place near a large tree. It wasn't far from the house but it was far enough from the streets and the entrance of the courtyard, giving us all the quietness we needed.

After that, the day passed quite fast. It was the day before the twins' birthday and actually there was a small typhoon going on in that house, yet Padmè and her family wouldn't let me do anything except spending as much time as I could with the twins. And, to be honest, that was the only thing I wanted to do in that moment.

We were getting to know each other, and it felt good. They were playful, happy kids. They reminded me of myself, when I was their age. When I was eight years old I was an energy pack ready to burst. A sandstorm in the body of a child. I didn't know much about Padmè but I guess they got that side from me. I spent that afternoon with them, trying to keep up with them. They were running all over the place, chasing each other and their cousins too, once they decided it was time to join them. Too bad I had to sit down on the grass and just watch. I would have given everything to have a perfectly healthy leg and have the chance to play with them. Too bad I had to wait for five days yet.

By the end of the day, when bedtime arrived, it was my turn to tuck them in. Padmè was still in the kitchen with her mother and sister so, it was up to me. I admit I cheated, I had to use the Force to push the light covers under the thick mattress, I still couldn't kneel and do it manually.

"So...big day tomorrow!" I said before turning off the light.

They nodded. "Yep..." mumbled Leia. "Big one indeed."

"We're turning eight!" said Luke. "And this time you're here!"

I sat on his bed for a moment. "Yes, this time I'm here. And I'm not going anywhere for the next twenty years!"

"And do you think they want us around for their 28th birthday?" said Padmè from the hallway. "I mean...for your 21st we had our own celebration without our parents around!" she sat down on Leia's bed and pulled the sheets a little up around her.

"It was a little different then, with the war and everything..." I answered. "And anyway, it was just a joke. They can do what they want once they're over age."

"That's for sure. Come on Dad, it's time to get to bed for you too."

We kissed them and after we turned off the light, we headed for our room. Next morning, it wasn't probably even seven, we heard a loud bang on the door and we jumped up wide awake and sat on the bed. "Come in!" I said rubbing my eyes.

The door opened with a bang and instantly Luke and Leia burst in the room and jumped on our bed, landing straight between me and Padmè. "Hey there..." she said still sleepy. "Happy birthday you two!" she hugged Luke and he squealed loudly trying to get out of her embrace.

"Thanks Mom!" giggled Leia as she settled under the bedclothes beside me, snuggling as close as she could.

"Happy birthday Squids..." I said hugging her.

"Kids...I'm sorry but this year I didn't have the time to prepare any presents. I've been a bit busy."

They looked at one another for a moment, then shook their head. "Who cares. We've got Dad this year. That's the best present we'll ever have." said Luke hugging his mother tightly, his blue eyes were sparkling.

So young, so wise. That kid was going to be a great leader one day.

As promised, their grandparents had managed to pull out an incredible birthday party for the twins. As we had learned to predict, Jobal, with Sola's help, had managed to cook enough for a whole army. Not to mention that right before lunch we heard the doorbell ring. Ruwee opened the door and Senator Organa was right there, with Aleha and Hilean. They had come for a quick visit, they would return to their places that very afternoon, but they wanted to be present, at least that day.

Having at least one of their friends with whom share that day was another great gift for them. They were so happy they had Hilean with them, almost as much as they were happy to have me there.

But Bail had brought something very special from Obi-Wan too. True to his words, he hadn't come, but he had sent them something for their training the same. I instinctively knew what was in those twin boxes when Aleha had fetched from her satchel right after lunch.

When they opened them and I saw something sparkle inside, I had the certainty. Those were the crystals for their new lightsabers. The second part of their training had begun. They weren't younglings anymore. They were Padawans to all intents!

Aleha and I exchanged an amused look as they started screaming with joy looking at the sparkling blue crystals in their boxes. I remember when I received my first crystal. I had pretty much the same reaction, I was just three years older than them.

"You know what..." I said. "This means Obi-Wan really trusts you. Most of the younglings won't start this phase of their training until they are eleven or twelve."

Aleha nodded. "Yep. You must be really talented or Master Kenobi wouldn't give them to you. It's really a great gift indeed!"

"It's awesome!" yelled Luke carefully inspecting the crystal he held in his fingers.

"Can I have a look?" I asked him. He nodded and handed it to me. I inspected it for a moment, instantly noticing something. "Oh as I imagined, it's still rough!"

Everyone looked at me. "What does that mean?" asked Padmè.

"It means..." I gave it back to Luke and he put it in its box. "It means that's not ready to be put into a lightsaber yet. It must be forged and that's a procedure that only the wielder of that particular weapon can do. It will take some time but once you have forged it as you want it, you can finish your saber."

"How long will it take?" asked Leia curiously.

"It depends how long will it take to you to learn how to do it!" replied Aleha. "And believe me, it might take months or years. It's all up to you. But believe me, the later you do it, the better that crystal will work. I assure you."

"And I confirm!" I added. "It took me six days to forge the crystal for mine. The last one I built at least. And that one never failed me. It still worked after seven years of inactivity!"

"What crystal did you use?" asked the other Jedi.

"I don't remember...I think it was a shard of dragite but I'm not sure. Obi-Wan should know it, we used two shards of the same crystals for our sabers. We both lost them on Geonosis." I said.

"Obi-Wan lost his one, yours got smashed under an industrial press!" added Padmè.

"Alright, mine was destroyed, but the substance is that we didn't have our own sabers when we returned!" I said. She was about to say something but I stopped "And I didn't even have my own right arm if that's what you were about to say!"

She chuckled for a second. "I was going to add that you lost your saber on Geonosis but at least you had me!"

I smiled and took her hand in mine. "Yep...and that's the best thing that happened in my life!"

We spent the rest of the afternoon together until Aleha, Hilean and Senator Organa had to leave. They were preparing to leave when Senator Organa suddenly turned around as if something very important had come to his mind. "Ah...Anakin...I don't know if anyone has told you yet but your droid, Threepio, I have him at the moment. He's on Alderaan with my wife. He's rather handy but some years ago we had to give him a memory wipe. He wasn't able to keep his mouth shut!"

I nodded. "Yeah, I was told that his memory had been deleted, but I didn't know where he was." I said. "I'm sure he's in good hands. I hope he's handy enough to match your disturb."

Bail smiled. "He's very, very handy. I fear my wife wouldn't give him away for every credit of the Galaxy."

"Good. Keep him there then. I don't think we'll need him in the near future!"

"Perfect. My wife will be very glad to know it. Now we have to go. It was great to be here. Thanks again for the hospitality and I hope we'll see you soon."

Padmè nodded and hugged him. "Of course. We'll be back as soon as Anakin's leg is fine."

"But mom!" interjected Leia. "Master Obi-Wan said he didn't want to see us for at least a month!"

"Your daugher is right Padmè. You need some time off and I agree with Master Kenobi. Stay away from Dantooine for at least a month or I'm going to kick you back here myself." he said, as serious as if he was giving a speech in the Senate. "And I mean it. Now, we really have to go. Thanks again and have a nice vacation!"

Later that evening, not too long after dinner, we were having a nice talk when the kids returned from the garden and announced they were tired. Padmè proposed them to go to bed but instead they climbed on our bench and settled between us and sighed contently. "Best birthday ever!" sighed Luke.

His aunt smiled. "Absolutely! You have everything you wanted, or not?"

Leia nodded as she sneaked further under my arm and hugged me. "This year...yes. I can't think about wanting anything else from now on."

I leaned down and kissed her hair. "You know that I got out of prison exactly one year ago?"

She looked up at me. "Really?"

"Yes. Exactly one year ago. You can consider it a sort of birthday present from me, a little late though."

"Let's say you started packing their birthday present really early!" said Padmè then. They nodded and sighed. "And you did a wonderful job..."

One hour later they were sleeping. With Sola's help, Padmè put them in their bed. Ruwee and Jobal had already gone inside and I was talking with Darred when our wives returned. Padmè sat beside me and sighed.

"Do you want to go to bed too?" I asked circling her shoulders with my arm.

She shook her head. "No, I'm fine here. It's just perfect out here."

I saw Sola smile for a moment. "Come Darred, let's get to bed. I'm a bit tired."

Darred was about to reply but she tugged his shirt a little and I guess he caught the hint because he sprinted up and with a quick "Goodnight." he followed his wife inside the house and they left us alone."

"Now, it's even better." she whispered leaning on my shoulder.

"What do you want to do?" I asked softly.

"Are you up for a walk? There's something I want to show you."

I nodded. "Sure. I'm not tired after all."

We stood and she turned off the light of the veranda and walked beside me. "Come with me."

We slowly walked down the garden. "Where are we going?"

She smiled and pushed me gently forward. "Don't worry. It's not far. Turn left here."

"Alright. I'm just curious that's all!" I said a bit defensively as I turned.

"You'll see. It's the place I used to go when I was younger, and even when I had grown up a little. It's the best spot of the garden." she told me softly. "Here...there was a bench but some years ago it fell apart. It was really old and years of staying out here had weakened it."

I knew that place. I had seen it, probably eight months before. "I think I know this place." I turned around and tried to recognize the area. "Yeah! I had a dream...some months ago! It was...probably the first birthday of the twins and you were talking to your sister..." I told her sitting down on the thick, cool grass.

Padmè sat down beside me. "I think I remember that. It's not one of my best moments, I have to tell you. I was frustrated in that moment!"

"Don't worry, I understand..." I laid down on the grass and sighed. "Hey, I can see Tatooine from here!"

Laughing softly, she laid down beside me and hugged me. "That's why I loved it so much. Sometimes, when I was home, I spent hours here, looking at that tiny spark up there, and wondering what you were doing. I knew you were in Coruscant or possibly on a mission with Obi-Wan but...knowing that there was still that tiny planet in the sky and that I could see it from here, well, it was reassuring." I heard her sniffle. "It was like having you near even if there was half a galaxy between us."

"I used to do something similar. When I felt lonely, I missed my mom or whatever, I used to think about when I won the Boonta Eve and you were so happy you hugged me without thinking that I was filthy and all sweaty. It was one of the best memories in my life!" I told her. "Well, at least until I kissed you! That was definitely better!"

She blushed for a second. "A bit unexpected maybe..."

"Don't tell me you didn't like it!" I joked as I tightened my hold on her.

"I did, don't worry! It's just that I have a better memory of us together."

I turned and kissed her forehead. "What memory?"

She kissed me back and sighed. "Our wedding night."

I laughed softly myself at the memory. "Oh...well...that's the kind of memory that kept me up when I was really depressed while in prison..."

She lifted her head and looked at me. "Excuse me?"

"Hey, you heard what Janu said! Everyone has his needs! It's not that I'm some kind of saint!" I replied trying to explain myself. "And Obi-Wan always told me that in order to be one with the Force you need to be calm and at peace. And when I thought about you I was calm and at peace. That's all!"

She rested her head on my chest again and sighed. We remained silent for I don't know how long, just holding each other and enjoying each other closeness. I just stared up to the sky, trying to recognize planets and stars.

Being out there, only the two of us, not a single sound coming from around us, it was nothing but magical. I wished that moment could last forever, being able to just lay there with my wife cuddled in my arms. There was no glory or power that could outclass that feeling of warmth and love that I was experiencing in that moment. Even the Force was almost still, at peace. Everything seemed to be in perfect harmony as it had never been before. The Jedi Temple should have been built on non Naboo, not Coruscant!

Suddenly I found myself thinking about what I had just done a couple of days before. I had deliberately decided to terminate Anakin Skywalker's life and take in the one of Atton Rosh again. That meant that I had lost every privilege of being a hero. That I would start working again as a mechanic or being a normal pilot again. Not that I didn't like it, but, you know, once you're used to be famous, once you know everyone knows your name and what you have done, it's hard to let it go. But for some mysterious reason, it felt right. That way I had ensured some level of safety to the Alliance and of course to my family. With me dead, or at least declared dead, no one would ever disturb them, that was sure. Of course we had to work out a way to spend some time together because rules were clear: you had to be married in order to be together, at least on Dantooine. Stupid rule, but rules were rules. And we were quite good at bending or breaking them completely.

"Are you ok with this?" I asked at some point, breaking the comfortable silence that surrounded us.

"What?"

"Me changing my name, giving up what we fought for..."

She sat up straight and looked down at me. "Of course I am! And you? Are you ok?"

I sat up myself. "Sure. If there's something that the last year taught me, it's that being a normal guy is nice. I thought I couldn't be anything else but a hero but...I found out that actually not being a hero is easier."

She leaned forward and kissed me softly. "But you are a hero Anakin, and it's not your name that makes you one."

"I know, it's just that...I don't know, I like being Atton Rosh, I mean, he's the man I would have become if Obi-Wan had decided not to train me but...I was thinking about you, and the twins. You married Anakin Skywalker, not Atton Rosh, and you know that only families can be together on Dantooine. You can't get married because you're officially dead and even if you could, it would be too suspicious. Your husband has just been declared dead and you marry another man? Come on! Everyone could do the math!"

"I know. And I know that rules on the base are strict. But we broke so many rules in our lives that breaking this one too can't be that bad! And what can they say? They can't throw us out of the Alliance, I mean, I founded it! My authority is still higher than any general or admiral in the military hierarchy."

"Really?" I asked, a bit stunned.

"Yep...the founding members...Me, Bail, Mon...we all have decision powers that outclass the military. We feared that they would start an open war with the Empire and we still don't have the funds to do it, therefore, we decide. They control the bases, recruitment and training but we decided whether we attack or not. That's it."

"Wow...it's like being the Queen again!"

Smiling, she hugged me tightly. "Not the Queen, just one of those who decide. That's all. We're a democracy, not a monarchy."

"At least that. I wouldn't expect anything less than that from you." I pulled her closer so she was sitting in my lap and kissed her again. "You're the personification of democracy!"

"I was." she sighed slowly, as if she wanted to push a thought away. "Now I just want to restore it, but at this rate, it's going to take years."

I held her tightly and sighed. "We will, don't worry about there. It won't take long before whole planets will riot against the Empire. But don't worry about it tonight, Ok? We're here on vacation, you can stop thinking about politics, Rebels and Empires."

She rested her forehead against mine. "You're right...I'm sorry I shouldn't have..."

I silenced her with a kiss. "Stop that! It's fine don't worry! It's just that we can talk about politics another day. What do you think?"

Slowly she nodded and rested her head on my shoulder. "Gods...it still feels like a dream. I fear that I'm going to wake up soon and you'll be gone again."

Smiling I pinched her arm, not hard enough to hurt but enough to mark my point. She jumped and squealed a bit but she knew what I meant with that gesture. "Do you still think it's a dream?" I asked then.

"Definitely no..." she whispered. "You look too real to be a dream!"

"Besides, in case I am actually a dream that will vanish in the morning, next time you dream something like this you're authorized to kill me!" I said jokingly. I threw a quick glance towards the house. All the lights were off, everything seemed quiet. "Do you think it's time to get back inside?"

Padmè shook her head and gently pressed her fingertip on my scar, sending shivers down my spine. It was a incredibly sensitive spot, it still gave me shivers when someone touched it. Most of all if she was the one. "No, I'm fine here. What do you think?" she asked with a mischievous smile on her lips while her fingers tangled in my hair.

I instantly knew what she had in mind and I swear I couldn't complain. I kissed her and this time it wasn't a chaste kiss like the others we had exchanged when the others were around. I felt the fire burning inside me in the same moment her lips touched mine. She turned slightly so she was straddling me and could move a bit more comfortably. I felt her hand grab the hem of my t-shirt and pulling it over my head. We separated just the time necessary to throw it somewhere near us then she kissed me again. I could feel the primal need in her actions, as her arms locked behind my neck and held me close to her. Damn, I loved when she acted a little rough, she was...let's say steamy because if I let too many details go loose she's going to kill me.

But as I worked on the buttons of her shirt something hit me. We were in the garden. Anyone could wake up, find out that we weren't sleeping and come out looking for us. Most of all the twins. And out in the garden there was no sheet that could save us like three days before.

"Padmè..." I groaned between kisses. "Padmè are you sure? Someone could catch us!"

She sighed and pulled my disheveled hair away from my face. "Anakin...why do you think we're here? My sister is a lightsleeper, my father too, not to mention that our room is right beside the twins' one." she explained. At least here it's quiet!"

Alright. My wife has a very dirty mind...

"You naughty little..." I whispered as I pushed my hands under the hem of her shirt and started tickling her mercilessly. "You planned this all along!"

"Are you complaining?" she giggled softly as she squirmed trying to stop me.

"Not at all..." I said quietly. Finally I managed to unfasten the last bottom of her shirt and let it slide off her shoulders. "Just remember that if someone catches us..."

She stopped me mid-sentence brushing her lips on mine. "Anakin, please, shut up! They're all adults and they know how it works. Just relax and be my hero tonight!"

I sighed and pulled her down for another heated kiss. "I love you..."

"I love you too!" she whispered pushing me back against the fresh grass.

No need to say it was the most amazing night in a long time...


	38. Epilogue - There Are More Stories To Tell

**Epilogue – There Are More Stories To Tell**

We stayed on Naboo for about a month just relaxing and trying to prepare a sort of strategy for our return to Dantooine. We had decided we would have returned there so the twins could train with the other kids, I could reprise my job of mechanic and engineer, while Padmè would take her role of founder of the Rebellion by joining the high ranks permanently. She didn't need to hide anymore, at least not like in the previews eight years. After all, Vader had seen her, trying to pretend she was dead was futile at that point. We had to be extra careful, that was sure, but at least she could be more active in her role of founders of the Rebellion.

During our stay on Naboo, I finally recovered from all the wounds I had suffered on Daltara and finally my leg was completely healed. For a couple of days after I had the confirm I could take off the splint I had to take it slow because my ankle still hurt a bit but once I regained some stability on my legs, there was no way anyone could stop me. I was probably more excited than the kids. With such a huge garden all for us, we could do everything we wanted. We played hide and seek, even though it was too easy for me to find them while it was a little harder for them to find me, they challenged me in speed race and I have to admit the first days I had a hard time beating them because my leg wasn't fully healed yet.

Anyway, when we returned home, for dinner and later for the night, we were all sweaty and sometimes covered with grass residue. We were having a lot of fun, that was sure.

About two weeks after our arrival I had just woken up and I was getting ready for the day when I heard someone knocking on the door. Padmè had already woken up and she was probably downstairs with her mother. I opened the door. It was Darred, sporting a warm smile on his face and holding a keyring in front of me.

"Hey, good morning!" I said.

"Good morning to you! Listen, last night I was thinking...why don't you and Padmè take a break only for the two of you? You leave the kids here, disappear for the weekend then return. What do you think?" he said giving me the keys in his hand.

"And where are we supposed to go?" I asked.

He smiled and leaned on the door frame. "These are the keys of the Lake Region house. I think you remember it, it's the Varykino retreat!"

I nodded. "Of course I do! We got married there!"

"Good. I made you a copy of the keys, go whenever you want. We can take care of the twins for a couple of days. You both need some time all for yourselves and that place is just perfect."

"Thank you Darred. I really appreciate it."

"Not a problem Anakin...it's a pleasure!"

Therefore, that weekend, we took his advice and just took off. The kids weren't too happy about it, they whined a bit for a minute or two, then Ryoo put her hands on her shoulders and told them something I really didn't expect from her. "Come on, they're gonna make you a little brother or sister, you should be happy about it!"

Everyone in the room, twins included, burst into laughs, I just blushed like hell and banged my head on the table trying to hide my face, ashamed like a teenager found in a compromising situation. Damn it! It felt like there was a plan to make me feel as ashamed as they could. "I can't believe you just said that!" I mumbled to my niece.

"Come on Anakin!" snapped Sola. "We all know how it works!"

"Do they?" I asked her pointing at the twins.

"Of course!" answered Padmè as calm as a stone. "They're young but not stupid! I told them about a year ago!"

I sighed. "Alright. This makes it a little less uncomfortable but..." I looked straight at the twins on the other side of the table. "Don't expect for a little brother or sister anytime soon. I've already enough to work with you two!"

Anyway, we took off, got three full days only for us, then returned home. Fortunately, no little Skywalker on the way, much to the twins and grandparents regret but it was better for us. I mean, our situation was already messy enough, with another kid it would be even worse.

Those three days alone had been perfect, just the two of us, this huge property, secluded from everything...pure awesomeness. It was almost painful to get back to Theed after those three blissful days. Still, we hadn't just had fun there, we pulled something useful out of that vacation. Padmè managed to create a strategy for our return on Dantooine. It was crazy, but in order to bend the rules without breaking them, we had to pretend we didn't even know each other, and that meant go back to all the stratagems we used during the wars. That is sneaking around in the middle of the night at crazy hours and take advantage of every single spare moment we could find.

I started working again in the workshop while Padmè worked a level up with the other high rank officers. Her role was pretty much of surveillance on the generals jobs, she referred to the Senators and kept the military calm enough not to launch another attack too close to the one on Daltara.

I took back my bunk in the dorm room with Haron, Dakk and this time Obi-Wan since Jagg had been moved to another base and Padmè took back her small three rooms flat with the twins. Easy enough. Atton Rosh was back and there was a new commander in the base. Nothing too big.

The plan was simple. Once everyone was in their rooms, the last presence check in the rooms had been done and the last light had been turned off, I would sneak out of my room and silently run down the hallway and reach Padmè's apartment, where she was waiting for me on the other side of the door, ready to open it as soon as I dared to knock. The only problem was when I had to get up. I had to set the alarm clock to unbelievable hours to get back in my dorm room to be there when they gave us the wake up call. I had never been a morning person. It was a stressful situation but at least I wasn't going around the Galaxy fighting against hordes of battle droids like during the wars. About a month after the beginning of this routine, I found out that my roommates had started tracking how long it took me to reach the end of the corridor and get in Padmè's apartment. At first I was a bit shocked but in the end it became a sort of challenge. Every night I tried to run faster and faster and they kept track of my progresses. It was crazy but it was fine, I have to admit that. As I got out of the room they peeked out of the door and faked some stadium support, mocking those huge crowds at sports event. Same thing in the morning when I ran down the hallway, practically jumped inside the room and then in my bunk. Sometimes I had the tendency to show off a bit and literally jump, but, heck, at least I had fun!

During the day we tried to use every spare moment we had to spend some time together. She had a very strict nine to five shift with one hour for lunch, I had to manage my time in the workshop (usually I worked there in the morning, from seven thirty to one PM then after lunch I would join Aleha, Ahsoka and Obi-Wan with the younglings.

Then when their training session was over, I would try to spend as much time with the twins I could before dinner and some after before I had to return to my room for the roll-call. And then everything started again, day after day.

Damn, it was a very stressful situation, but it worked fine. I had a very tight timetable, but with some help from everyone, it worked. I had time with my kids, I worked in the workshop with my friends and spent every free other moment with my wife.

We both had one hour for lunch and we spent it all by ourselves. By the end of the first month, we had found all the available storage rooms of the base. They had found a new purpose other than being full of boxes and stuff no one looks for. It might sound squalid and somehow idiotic, but the rules of the base didn't allow us to be openly a couple. She had to play the part of the new widowed wife and it would look weird if she started another relationship with another man.

Stupid rules.

We had to deal with stupid rules and social restrictions for almost three years, then fate separates us and now we were back to the same stupid strict rules and the same stupid social restrictions. Life has fucking annoying sense of humor!

Anyway, life goes on.

We were a normal, troubled Rebel family. As months passed, I gathered a sort of good reputation among the officers and the other workers. Some still didn't like the fact that my hours in the workshop were cut so I could teach the kids and when I had time and authority asked, I gave hand to hand combat lesson to the special troops, two elite squads of highly trained soldiers we were training for future stealth attacks.

Or at least we were trying.

Things weren't going that good on the side of action against the Empire. Such a high profile attack like the Daltara one had drawn a lot of attention on the Rebellion and we had to keep quiet. Many soldiers didn't like it. Some of those we had enrolled in the troops lines had lost everything during the war or the civil disorders that happened right after the beginning of the Empire and they wanted revenge.

At some point, six months after the attack on Daltara, the chiefs decided it was time to renovate the base. Or at least make some changes. Most of the troops were scattered around the galaxy in newly founded bases, a new training ground had been build in the jungles of Yavin, the base itself built under the Massassi temple complex where I had battled against Asajj Ventress years before. Dantooine was more a facility for design, build and store equipment, at least the kind we could actually build. Of course, ships and fighters were handled by Incom, building war ships without an assembly line would take forever.

With the small army moved, the base was a lot quieter than before, still we had people coming and going, attending to flight lessons and basic combat training even there. The Alliance was gathering a rather large army, that was sure. Rumors said there was another full force attack planned for the next months but it was just that, rumors. But the Red Squadron still remained ready and highly trained. We had a couple of losses during the fight but we had found some good replacements.

As a team, we went along fine. We were deadly precise and we were good at understanding each other. Probably, Red Squadron would have done great in the future. See the Battle of Yavin.

Even our private life was fine.

Well, it was more than fine.

After so many years of denial, hurt, separation and everything that had happened, from the beginning of the war to my imprisonment and the following eight years of living hell, once I had gained a sort of emotional stability when I was reunited with my family and friends, I just felt as I had never did before. Calm, at peace. I could feel the Force stronger than before, and teaching the kids, not only my own children but all the twenty two younglings and young Padawans Aleha had trained, well, it gave me a confidence I had never gained in my thirty years of life. I didn't get angry for the first stupid thing that happened, I rarely raised my voice if not to call someone who was far from me. It felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders and for the first time in years I could breath again.

And it was awesome!

For the first time I was free to be myself, and fully enjoy it!

And this time I could do it without restrictions, but I also could be myself and share this incredible opportunity with my family and friends. No more slavery or Jedi codes of conduct. If there was something good that happened to us with the war and the overthrown of the Republic was a second chance. For all of us. For me to be a better man, for Padmè to forget her duties as a senator and catch up with everything she had left behind in her youth, and for the Order itself to renovate.

I had discussed with Obi-Wan about it and even if he was a sort of old-school aficionado he agreed with me. The Order needed to be renovated. And we could start from there.

It was a fresh start.

For everyone.

In the end, we adjusted into a sort of normality that allowed us to be a normal, functioning family, even if we had our own problems, as every family does. Nothing big, just minor misunderstanding, that's all. I had the tendency to be a bit childish with the twins, and they relied on me for things Padmè forbid. Most of the time I tended to follow her orders, after all I still had to raise my parental skills but there were matters in which I tended to be a bit softer than her. Most of all if the matter revolved around homework. I hated them as much as they did, when I was their age, and I was inclined to cut their study time from time to time. And Padmè hated that.

Except for these minor incidents, we were just perfect.

A family as I had always wanted. A family as we had intended eleven years before, when we had got married on Naboo. A family I had sworn to protect with my own life and that, in a very twisted way, I had managed to save from disaster by abandoning them.

My family, our little source of joy.

Something worth a thousand lies, seven years of torture, one year as a clandestine and months of depression and complete self disgust. Yep, it was worth it. Every second of those long eight years were worth the sight of their happy faces when I entered in the room.

I had found my peace, it had only taken some time more than what I had expected. At least until the next year!

But wait a sec, don't think it was just perfect from here until the end of the Empire because we had our fix of mess and disasters! There are more stories to tell!


End file.
